Labour party conference: basking in glory or constrained celebrations?

This year’s event will feel more serious and sober than past event but opportunities abound for organisations willing to match the Government’s mood-music.

You have to go back to September 2005 when Labour last went into conference season basking in the warm afterglow of an election victory. That month, as Tony Blair prepared to give another Conference speech as PM, the Pussycat Dolls topped the chart with Don’t Cha, the recently departed Sven Goran Eriksson was guiding England to another fruitless World Cup Finals in Germany, and scandal-free Strictly Come Dancing was in its third series.

You might therefore forgive Labour’s new cohort of MPs turning up in Liverpool this weekend for their excitement at what has not been a regular occurrence.

Yet, the negative mood-music shaping British politics – not helped by a summer of riots and seemingly intractable conflict in the Middle East and Ukraine – brings into sharp relief the challenges of governing.

At Conference, Labour, as both a party and a government, must confront the gargantuan task of reforming the country while growing the economy. It must set a paradigm for the five years ahead that balances the situation that the UK finds itself in economically while pointing to a brighter future.

Finding such an equilibrium will not come easy.

Winter is coming

Internal dissension over the decision to means-test the Winter Fuel Allowance is a portent of the difficult trade-offs facing the present Labour government and contrasts with successive Blair governments where the party was able to ride a wave of strong economic growth and stability.

Thanks to its huge majority the Government sailed through the vote on the Allowance but the wider party and its membership are neither comfortable with depriving millions of pensioners of a helping financial hand nor with the fact that the policy was sprung on them without preview.

A key theme therefore that will feature in this week’s Conference will be how the Labour leadership manages the internal battlelines that are starting to emerge as policy direction becomes clearer. This might appear contradictory given the scale of Labour’s thumping summer election victory.

However, given the speed with which Labour both entered and exited the Corbyn era, Party delegates will be all too aware of how minor squabbles can quickly turn into gaping sores and to a party looking inwards not outwards.

Opportunities for industry

For private sector delegates, this year’s Conference is an opportunity to meet a new generation of Labour MPs and their advisors for the first time.

Fringe event discussions will focus on Labour’s reforms to planning laws and how this much previewed shake-up might stimulate growth opportunities across the UK regions.

Already, three months into the new Labour Government we have seen many decisions taken by a Secretary of State keen to unlock green energy projects not just by lifting restrictions such as the moratorium on onshore wind but also on the development of specific locations – clean energy hubs with solar, grid, and new nuclear– which have previously been stymied by bureaucracy.

Questions will be posed around Great British Energy (GBE) – Britain’s new publicly-owned energy company – and just how quickly the vehicle can be set up. Domestic clean energy supply chain businesses will demand clarity on their role given that supporting British supply chains is one of the five key functions of GBE.

And what of the model itself? How will GBE decide what stakes to take in the projects it will own, manage and operate?

Answers will be forthcoming if the right questions are posed.

Foreign companies currently investing or considering UK investment will finally have an opportunity in Liverpool to look into the whites of the eyes of new Ministers and MPs to assess their receptiveness to new ideas, models and technologies.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) into the UK has flatlined since 2016 largely due to the country walling itself off from its European partners and antagonistic mood-music around EU trade dampening interest. Yet, the UK remains one of the most open economies globally for FDI in energy and industry.

One of the most encouraging actions in the first three months of the new Government was to see the Prime Minister heading to Berlin on a state visit to reset relations. This was followed by a similar trip to Dublin in early September. Clearly, Labour is doing everything it can to set a new rhythm to European relations aimed at smoothing trading wrinkles and building lasting alliances.

But how far can this reset go without more substantive reform and negotiation with the EU itself?

This remains to be seen. However, Conference offers foreign companies an opportunity to test ideas and to promote messages and models of partnership in many key areas of the economy including energy and industry, healthcare and defence.

Therefore, after last year’s Labour ‘Lovefest’ – where 18,000+ delegates turned up to reacquaint themselves with a party that had been given a wide berth by business during the Corbyn era – I anticipate that Party Conference 2024 will be more measured, sober and focused.

But in contrast to 2005, this year Labour will be framing the public policy agenda for its first term within a much more constrained macro-economic environment.

This offers opportunities for organisations to engage with the new Government if they understand the limitations of this era while realising a new market paradigm where messages will have to be more targeted and direct than ever.

This article was drafted by Dr Michael Zdanowski, a Senior Advisor to Rud Pedersen and a Consultant to the Energy, Industry and Technology sectors.

Michael can be reached at: [email protected]