
LFIG, the Labour Finance and Industry Group, is the only socialist society affiliated to the Labour Party which is exclusively focussed on business – Labour Business. Our remit is twofold: to engage with the business community, and to develop the pro-enterprise policies on which Labour can campaign to win in forthcoming elections. LFIG is one of the key links between the Party and the business community – a voice for business in the Party, and a voice for the Party in the business community. We work with Britain’s businesses, whether large, medium, small or self-employed, and with the trades unions, to promote a pro-enterprise agenda in the Labour Party. It’s clear to our members, and from subsequent polling, that Labour was perceived to be an anti-enterprise party at the General Election, and that this perception contributed to our defeat. This remains a defining issue that the Party must tackle head on. That’s why we are working with Jeremy Corbyn and his leadership team to engage with the business community as well as with stakeholders in the Party and other affiliated organisations in taking forward an ambitious pro-enterprise policy agenda. That agenda must bust the myth that Labour is an “anti-enterprise” party. And that’s why we welcome Jeremy Corbyn’s statement to us, among the candidate statements we published before the Labour leadership election, that “we need to be creating high-skilled, high productivity jobs as we transition to a carbon neutral economy.” I hope you will join us at our fringe events at Conference to take forward this crucial debate. LFIG’S new Chairman, Hamish Sandison, is a partner in an international law firm, and leads their consultancy arm. He has served as a member of LFIG’s executive Committee for 2 years, and was a Labour Parliamentary Candidate in Monmouth in the 2010 General Election. He chaired the joint LFIG/Society of Labour Lawyers Task Force on Public Procurement, which published its influential report on “socially responsible procurement” shortly before this year’s General Election.