What did Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves achieve in Davos?

Labour leader’s Alpine trip was a small but significant exercise in profile-building says Sean O’Grady

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves in the Alpine resort of Davos (Reuters)

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have been to the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland. In contrast to their absent counterparts they seem to have made a good, if low-key, impression.

Why is Keir Starmer in Davos?

It’s what opposition leaders and politicians on the rise need to do. Although not in government, at the World Economic Forum they at least look like players who can make a mark on a global stage. Boris Johnson attended while Mayor of London, and David Cameron, when leader of the opposition, made a desperate and dangerous motorcycle dash down a motorway in 2007 to catch the last plane to Switzerland and put his then-unknown face around among the “masters of the universe”.

In 2017, Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow chancellor John McDonnell paid a surprise visit with the avowed purpose of telling any billionaires he met just how much ordinary folk despised them. Safe to say Reeves and Starmer didn't follow suit.

Any other motivation?

Starmer will have enjoyed being one of the few British representatives there, as Rishi Sunak was busy with the botched relaunch of levelling up and most other ministers are too nervous about looking too much like they’re enjoying themselves while the country struggles through strikes, inflation and impending recession (“Crisis, what crisis?”). Only trade secretary Kemi Badenoch and intrepid business secretary Grant Shapps were brave enough to turn up at the Belvedere Hotel CBI event and declare they wanted to “scale up Britain” even as GDP shrinks under their government. The ambitious pair probably enjoyed burnishing their CVs ahead of any future leadership contest.

The Labour leader couldn’t resist having a little poke at the PM: “I think our prime minister should have shown up at Davos.” Which means that if he ever does end up in No 10, Starmer will have obliged himself to go every year.

Did Starmer have company?

Apart from some aides, he took the shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves. As a professional economist, and ex-Bank of England, she was at least at home with the chatter about de-globalisation and green growth. As well as being a logical choice for a travelling companion, it was also a further signal of the esteem in which Starmer holds Reeves. As with Starmer himself, it was a small but significant exercise in profile building, and an opportunity to make her own jibe at her counterpart: "Somebody has got to be an ambassador for Britain and the prime minister and the chancellor are not here.”

What did Starmer achieve?

He tried to look and sound prime ministerial, although inevitably he was overshadowed a bit by two ex-prime ministers in town, Tony Blair and Boris Johnson. Johnson described the WEF as a “constellation of egos involved in orgies of adulation”, which sounds like it suits them both.

Aside from that, Starmer had a prime ministerial-style bilateral meeting with Leo Varadkar about the Northern Ireland Protocol – and, one day, Labour votes may be needed in the Commons if Sunak needs approval for a new deal with a significant rebellion likely by Eurosceptics on the Tory side. Starmer also repeated that Britain wouldn’t be rejoining the EU or the single market but a receptive audience liked his generally warmer and pragmatic attitude to trade cooperation, something Starmer hopes will help him win friends in Brussels while not making enemies in his “red wall” target constituencies at home. A plea for the future of the British car industry and a search for commercial partners for his national green investment plan also made the trip politically worthwhile.