The Labour party under its new leader Keir Starmer has been meeting with asset managers to repair the relationship it had with the industry under its former leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Shadow City minister Pat McFadden recently met with representatives from Standard Life Aberdeen and the Investment Association via video calls, the Financial Times reports. McFadden, who initiated the meetings, said the party under Corbyn had not engaged with business.
“I’ve always believed that an aspiring party of government should be as interested in wealth creation as it is in the fair distribution of wealth.”
Alongside a sceptical attitude towards business, Corbyn’s policies on nationalisation and raising corporate tax were not welcomed by many in the City.
Key issues discussed included the contribution of asset management to the coronavirus economic recovery, the role of pensions in funding infrastructure, sustainable investment and the UK’s net-zero carbon emission target.
The Investment Association said: “A constructive and open, even if at times robust, dialogue with political parties on all sides of the house is critical, not only to the good functioning of our economy but for our democracy too.”
Cicero boss Iain Anderson said: “There is now an entirely constructive and open relationship, and talk of partnership with finance again.”
Anderson named shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds as another Labour MP working to repair the party’s reputation in the City. Dodds was previously an MEP on the European Parliament’s economic and monetary affairs committee.
McFadden added that both Labour and Conservatives had in recent years presented the UK financial services sector with a “cold climate politically”.
The sector has raised concerns about being overlooked in Brexit negotiations. In 2018, Boris Johnson, then foreign secretary, responded with an expletive when questioned about businesses’ concerns about the UK exit from the European Union.
