LABOUR’S Rachel Reeves is set to pitch the UK as a destination for business investment to the mega-rich in Davos.
The shadow chancellor will visit the Swiss mountain resort for a meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in a bid to woo business leaders on Wednesday.
Reeves attended the event last year with UK Labour leader Keir Starmer, but is expected to ramp up her lobbying of the mega-rich with this visit, kicking off with a closed breakfast event with JP Morgan where she’ll pledge to “restore Britain’s reputation as a place to do business”.
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It shows a marked change from the party’s position in 2018, where then-shadow chancellor John McDonnell said: “I don’t think the people here have any comprehension of the contempt in which they are held”.
Former party leader Jeremy Corbyn once branded the WEF as a “billionaires’ jamboree”.
Reeves, on the other hand, will say that the “lifeblood of economic growth is private sector investment”.
The Leeds West MP will also argue that the UK needs a new economic model that puts “economic security first and rebuilds our ability to do, make and sell more at home”.
“None of the ambitions of the next Labour government can be achieved without business,” she is expected to add.
"That is why we have put business investment at the heart of our plan for growth.
"With Labour, Britain will be open to business. We will restore stability and security into our economy.
"We will restore Britain’s reputation as a place to do business. And we will be a trusted partner with business in delivering the change our country and our economy needs.”
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Reeves will also accuse the Tories of undermining the UK’s economic stability and presiding over “14 years of stagnant economic growth and political uncertainty [that] has left Britain weaker”.
As well as a media round on Wednesday, Reeves is set to speak on a panel organised by the WEF on supply-side economics, followed by several “bi-laterals” with business leaders and shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds.
Scottish Greens MSP Maggie Chapman said the move showed Labour are simply "offering more of the same".
She said: "The last thing our economy - or our society - needs is more of the same unrestrained markets and predatory capitalism of the billionaires' club at Davos.
"The last Labour government embraced the banks and the super-wealthy, and it ended in chaos for millions of people. Our world and our economic system need fundamental change.
"Yet, all that Sir Keir Starmer's Labour Party is offering is more of the same policies that have done so much damage.
"If we are to have a positive and sustainable future then it must be based on sustainability and fair, well paid work that supports workers and families rather then entrenching the grotesque inequality and environmental destruction that so many of those at Davos have driven and benefited from."
Pollsters told Politico that the move was evidently part of Starmer’s bid to “emphasise a clear break with Corbynism and that wing of the party”.
“This is an extension of that,” Scarlett Maguire, director at JL Partners, said.
“Increasingly, we’re seeing him look more like a prime minister in waiting, and shaking hands with world leaders, being at these events on the international stage will, I think, help that, and I’m sure it will also make people think that he looks like he can already do the role,” Maguire added.
She also said that while Starmer could be losing some of Labour’s 2019 voters by pursuing the mega-rich in Davos, the push to show economic competence is crucial to winning over voters who backed the Tories at the last election.
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