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Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington North and candidate in the Labour Party leadership election, speaks to supporters outside Great St Mary’s church on September 6, 2015 in Cambridge, England.
One of Europe’s largest political gatherings will take place in the British seaside town of Brighton this weekend, with analysts keeping an ear out for any major noises coming from a resurgent opposition Labour party that defied the critics at this year’s general election.
Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party succeeded in dislodging the Conservatives’ parliamentary majority on June 8, confounding predictions that it would suffer heavy losses in the vote. Labour and the Conservatives are now roughly neck-and-neck in the polls, according to the latest surveys from research firms YouGov and ICM.
Allen Simpson, the chief operating officer of the networking group Labour in the City, suggests the party’s surge in support is prompting the corporate world to pay closer attention to its policy agenda. He told CNBC in an email: “Businesses are increasingly seeing a Labour government as an immediate term probability.”
However, far from all commentators believe investors need to start factoring in a Labour election victory into their near-term forecasts. Kallum Pickering, senior U.K. economist at Berenberg, says the Conservative Party conference is more of a focus for markets than the Labour Party equivalent.
But he added that Labour’s gathering in Brighton is worth following in case it throws up any policy surprises.
So with Britain’s two main political parties roughly level in the polls, and with the prospect of another snap election looming, here’s a roundup of what to expect from the 2017 Labour Party conference.
