(C) OpenDemocracy This story was originally published by OpenDemocracy and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Lobbyist Labour candidates chair exclusive meetings between business and MPs [1] [] Date: 2024-05 When Polly Billington chaired a meeting between Labour’s shadow climate change chief Kerry McCarthy and reps from the energy, manufacturing and transport industries in January, she wore two hats: lobbyist and parliamentary candidate. As a lobbyist, Billington was in attendance as a senior adviser for Hanover Communications, in whose office the meeting occurred, to connect their high-powered clients with McCarthy in the run-up to an election that Labour is expected to win. Meanwhile, in her Labour role, she is the candidate for East Thanet, a newly formed constituency largely based on the bellwether Leave-backing seat of South Thanet on the Kent coast. McCarthy, Billington and the business leaders spent an hour or so discussing Labour’s policy programme and priorities – including its much-feted ‘Green Prosperity Plan’ – over coffee and pastries, according to a LinkedIn post by a Hanover employee. On the table in front of them, a sticker on the back of a laptop read: “There is no planet B.” Get dark money out of UK politics! Sign our petition to put pressure on the government to tighten electoral laws and shine more light on political donations. We need to know who is giving what to our political parties. Sign up Three weeks later, on 8 February, Labour publicly confirmed the party was binning the centrepiece of its economic and climate change policy – the so-called “Green Pledge” to invest £28bn a year into the ‘Green Prosperity Plan’. The money was meant to go towards tech that would tackle climate change, but the party says it will spend the equivalent of just £5bn a year on the plan during its first term in office. If Labour wins the next election, this U-turn will directly affect precisely the sorts of businesses whose representatives met McCarthy and Billington back in January. Billington, McCarthy, and a spokesperson for Labour would not confirm which of the organisations on Hanover’s client list, which includes two oil and gas firms, attended the meeting. Nor would they confirm or deny whether those present at the 18 January roundtable were given advance notice of Labour’s £28bn U-turn. The right connections Billington is just one of a cohort of lobbyists selected to represent Labour as candidates in the next general election, which is likely to be this year. At least 20 of the around 215 prospective Labour candidates announced thus far are current or former corporate lobbyists, with at least 15 more coming from the wider public affairs and consultancy sector. Several work with firms that have represented clients including Amazon, Uber, Raytheon and British American Tobacco UK in the last year, according to the UK lobbying register. Most of these candidates, including Billington, fail to mention their current line of work in any campaign literature. Billington’s LinkedIn profile says nothing about her role as senior adviser at Hanover, simply describing her current profession as a freelance “strategic adviser”. Over the past year there have been at least ten private meetings and events chaired by lobbyist-cum-candidates between business leaders and shadow ministers, according to social media posts seen and verified by openDemocracy. At these meetings, those with the right connections get exclusive insight into Labour policy, are advised on how best to lobby the party, and offer up suggestions for what Labour should do in office. But the blurring of the lines between candidates and lobbyists is worrying for some of Labour’s traditional supporters who fear Big Business will hijack the agenda before the party even gets into government. Members of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU) voted to sever a 118-year-old link with the Labour Party in 2021 because, according to national president Ian Hodson, the union could “see the direction of travel” under new leader Keir Starmer. Hodson is one of many in the wider workers’ movement who think the dropping or watering down of key policy positions under Starmer is in part attributable to the fact that “corporate lobbyists are now deep inside the party”. He said: “Their approach seems to not be driven by fairness but by what corporations think is acceptable. The Labour Party doesn’t want to be seen as the new Tory Party, it says, but the Tory Party has always hid behind this veil of secret discussions with lobbyists and corporate interest, and it appears that the Labour Party is doing the exact thing that it accuses the Tories of.” After the £28bn U-turn, Hodson and a number of other trade union sources say they are concerned that the so-called ‘New Deal for Workers’, which includes a raft of measures aimed at strengthening the rights of people at work from day one of their employment, will be the next major policy to fall. Once elected, MPs are banned from carrying out paid lobbying work. But there is no such rule preventing people who have been selected as official candidates for Parliament from continuing to work as lobbyists up until they are elected. And the limitations of the Transparency of Lobbying Act mean that lobbying firms are only obliged to declare clients on whose behalf they lobby the government – not opposition parties such as Labour. As a consequence, Labour has no obligation to publish details of meetings between frontbenchers and lobbyists, such as the one chaired by Polly Billington. This has led to a major lack of transparency, which even the lobbying industry’s representative body, the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), says is a problem. “In our view any lobbyist, whether standing as a candidate or not, should be required to declare their activities. The present law does not allow them to register, and we believe that this has to change,” said Alastair McCapra, CIPR’s chief executive. ‘Transparency revolution’ Billington’s case is not isolated. In May 2023, shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds addressed clients of the lobbying firm PLMR at Church House Westminster, a grand central London venue once favoured by Winston Churchill. According to posts on LinkedIn, those present in the venue’s Bishop Partridge Hall – which starts at £550 per half day to rent out – heard from Reynolds about “Labour’s plans for the next election” and “how best to engage with the party”. Jack Abbott, Labour’s candidate for Ipswich and a senior account manager at PLMR, chaired the discussion. Abbott has hosted similar meetings with shadow treasury minister James Murray; Chi Onwurah, whose shadow brief covers life sciences and innovation; and shadow roads minister Bill Esterson. None of the shadow ministers involved in these meetings responded to requests for comment on what was discussed and all but one declined to say which firms were represented. openDemocracy also asked Labour the same question and was similarly given no response. But a party spokesperson did tell us: “As part of their role, it’s perfectly legitimate for shadow ministers to speak to industry representatives across the areas they work in. It would be unusual if this wasn’t the case. “All MPs declare their interests as required by Parliament and they are available online for the public to see.” The party did not address questions about whether it was right for prospective candidates, who are not yet MPs, to be offering access to the shadow cabinet. This evasive approach runs counter to previous comments by Keir Starmer, who called for a “transparency revolution” when he announced his intention to stand for the party leadership in 2020. He wrote on Twitter that “there should be no power without accountability, and true accountability requires transparency”. Starmer’s supporters have defended a number of high profile U-turns on pledges made in 2020 on the basis that the economic outlook has vastly deteriorated since these promises were first made. The party has also dropped a promise to ban former ministers from lobbying for five years, a policy originally mooted as a way to clamp down on the much-criticised ‘revolving door’ between politics and big business. Rose Zussman, senior policy manager at Transparency International UK, warned that parliamentary candidates “must not use their position for the benefit of past clients or other vested interests”. She added: “Parliamentary candidates from all parties who want to give voters confidence should commit to upholding the highest standards of integrity in public office, including a promise to avoid all perceived advantage to their previous employers.” ‘Road to election’ James Frith is the former MP for Bury North and will attempt to retake the seat for Labour at the next election. He is also senior counsel at Atticus Partners, an influential Westminster lobbying firm that counts British American Tobacco UK among its clients. In the last month he has chaired meetings between business clients of the firm and two of Labour’s frontbench team: shadow environment secretary Steve Reed, and shadow industry and decarbonisation minister Sarah Jones, with the latter event taking place on the parliamentary estate. Again, the party declined to provide a list of firms represented at these meetings. Reed also has an indirect link to another lobbying firm: he employs a staffer who joined the party in 2022 after working at Hanbury Strategy. Two current employees at the firm are standing for Labour at the next election – Hannah Dawson and Joe Morris – though there is no evidence that either has met Reed. Emma Reynolds is another former MP seeking re-election who currently works as a lobbyist: she is director of public affairs at the financial services industry body, The City UK. In June last year, according to a post on LinkedIn, she met with Rachel Reeves, Jonathan Ashworth and Jonathan Reynolds for a roundtable to “discuss unlocking investment to drive growth”. Ashworth was shadow work and pensions secretary at the time. Like James Frith and Emma Reynolds, Melanie Onn (Blakeney), Mary Creagh (Lexington) and Anna Turley are all former MPs who currently work for lobbying firms and have been selected to stand at the next election. Turley, the former MP for Redcar, works in the ‘Labour Directorate’ at the lobbying firm Arden Strategies alongside Blair McDougall, a longtime Labour campaigner who has previously worked for the Tony Blair Institute and is standing for election in East Renfrewshire. Martha Angharad O’Neil, standing in Caerfyrddin, began an 18-month stint at the firm in October 2019. In a 17-page lobbying guide titled ‘Road To Election’ published by 5654 & Company for the firm’s clients, adviser Ieuan Môn Williams writes that businesses “need to start building relationships and informing the next generation of MPs now… to help shape the manifestos and ensure [they] go into the new Parliament with some supporters and well informed MPs from day one”. Williams is standing for Labour in the Welsh island seat of Ynys Mon. In the last year, 5654 has represented private health giant HCA Healthcare, Coca Cola, Drax Group, and arms manufacturer Raytheon UK. The firm also sponsored Labour’s high profile business conference last month alongside Arden. And the party has selected longtime campaigner and veteran lobbyist Gregor Poynton, a partner at Headland Consultancy, to contest the seat of Livingston. Dorothy Guerrero, head of policy at the campaign group Global Justice Now, said: “The existence of shadowy corporate lobbying across the political spectrum should concern anyone who cares about democracy, trust and transparency in politics. “Policy should be made with the interests of ordinary people in mind – not multi-billion-pound corporations like Amazon and Big Oil and Gas, who seek to expand their monopoly power and profit margins at the expense of our planet and communities from the UK to the Global South.” Last week, another group of corporate executives walked into Hanover’s offices. Again, Billington was tasked with chairing a discussion. This time the guests were shadow City minister Tulip Siddiq, three panellists from the world of green finance, and a room full of lobbyists representing a wide range of organisations with interests in the sector, including global investment bank Goldman Sachs, according to two panellists at the event. An agenda sent out before the event provided attendees with a list of suggested topics and questions, including: “What is your one regulatory / legislative ask of a new government?” The event, co-hosted by Hanover and the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, was advertised on the latter organisation's website as open to all, so openDemocracy contacted the CIPR about attending and was accepted. A Hanover representative rescinded the invitation the day before the event, saying only that panellists had been advised that media would not be present. But the three green finance panellists who openDemocracy spoke to said they were unaware of this. Got a tip about lobbying and influence in British politics? 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