Britain’s Labour Party is winning over business chiefs, poll suggests – POLITICO

LONDON — Labour leader Keir Starmer’s pre-election love-in with business is continuing to bear fruit, according to a new poll.

The focaldata survey, carried out for Lodestone Communications and shared with POLITICO’s London Influence newsletter, comes as both parties seek to repair battered ties with business after a chaotic few years in Westminster.

Nearly half (49 percent) of the 751 C-suite business representatives surveyed now believe Starmer, the U.K. opposition leader, is most “in touch” with the needs of businesses and employers. That compares with just 34 percent who think Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is most in touch with business needs — and represents an increase of 7 percentage points for Starmer since April.

The survey also finds that 70 percent of business leaders expect a Labour majority at the next election — down just 1 percentage point in the last six months — with almost two-thirds (64 percent) expressing some level of optimism at the prospect.

The poll — carried out before this week’s Conservative conference — will come as a boost to Starmer ahead of his own party’s annual gathering in Liverpool this weekend. The U.K. opposition leader has made it a priority to woo business and shore up Labour’s economic credentials ahead of next year’s general election.

Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives have also upped their business outreach game as the next election looms.

The party’s Manchester conference, which wrapped up this week, saw praise for Franck Petitgas, an ex-Morgan Stanley executive drafted in by Sunak earlier this year to lead business engagement. Sunak used a sit-down lunch with business leaders to warn firms that while Labour is wooing them now, their policies may be a longer-term threat to the bottom line.

The opposition party is facing pressure to reveal more concrete detail about its policy plans should it form the next government, with more than half (56 percent) of those polled believing Labour will adopt more interventionist policies than currently revealed.

That may not be wholly unwelcome among bosses, however. The poll finds that 45 percent of firms believe government intervention and regulation has helped to create business confidence, compared with just 21 percent who believe it has negatively impacted their operations.

Martha Dalton, managing director of Lodestone, said bosses were “calling the next election for Labour,” and that “more businesses than not welcome government and regulatory attempts to improve the operating environment.”