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Labour raised almost £400,000 from corporate Britain on Wednesday after tickets for its business conference in February sold out in four hours, the latest sign of companies trying to woo the UK’s main opposition party.
The event in south London will be a chance for corporate leaders to meet senior Labour front benchers as the party leads in the polls ahead of a general election expected next year.
The sales came as Larry Fink, chief executive of BlackRock, separately praised Sir Keir Starmer for moving Labour away from the “populism” of the party under previous leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Fink told the Wall Street Journal the Labour leader had demonstrated “real strength” by pushing the party to the centre ground. BlackRock said Fink was not offering an endorsement.
Companies have rushed to build ties with Labour, which was largely hostile to big business under Corbyn, as the party has remained ahead of the ruling Conservatives in opinion polls for the past year.
The Conservatives, more traditionally the UK’s party of business, have been repairing their relations with big companies, some of which grew frustrated by Brexit and Liz Truss’s disastrous “mini” Budget last year.
The Tories’ business day at their recent party conference was better attended than in previous years, with some attendees saying they were impressed by the professionalism of the party under Rishi Sunak.
For Labour, the interest of the business community has helped the party become less reliant on its traditional source of major funding, trade unions, ahead of what is likely to be the most expensive election ever.
On Wednesday, Labour put 400 tickets to the February event on sale at £995. By the afternoon, the event had sold out, according to a lobbyist whose clients had tried to sign up.
They were invited to join a waiting list, which had 100 people on it by the evening, according to Labour officials.
Labour has also sold 20 sponsorships and partnerships for the one-day event, which raised further hundreds of thousands of pounds, the officials said.
Starmer, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves and shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds are all set to deliver keynote speeches at the event, which will be followed by a drinks reception.
The trio have been leading Labour’s efforts to win the backing of business leaders and to enlist the private sector as it attempts to draw up an industrial strategy that will form part of its pitch at the general election.
“We are proud that so many business leaders are now looking to Labour to deliver the stability, certainty and ambition our economy needs,” Reynolds said on Thursday.
Fink on Wednesday said he was “very pleased” to see that Labour was no longer an “extremist” party. He said the shift was “a measurement of hope” that global politics was moving away from populism.
“We will see what happens if Keir Starmer gets elected,” he added.
Last week, Mark Carney, the former Bank of England governor, endorsed Reeves in a pre-recorded video while she was on stage at Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool.
During the conference, Starmer told 200 executives and lobbyists at its nearly £2,000-per-ticket business forum: “If we do come into government, you will be coming into government with us.”
The party has called on former Boris Johnson adviser Iain Anderson, founder of public relations group Cicero, to draw up a plan for achieving that “partnership”.
Labour has sought to tread a careful line between welcoming business and staying loyal to its leftwing base, positioning itself as “a pro-business, pro-worker party”.
Its policy plans include strengthening worker rights, through measures such as more generous sick pay and an end to zero-hours contracts. The plans have been welcomed by trade unions.