Johnson to host dinner for global business elite
Prime Minister launches post-brexit charm offensive on international finance with Downing Street soirée
BORIS JOHNSON is to host an intimate dinner with some of the world’s most powerful executives including Bill Gates and JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon, as he seeks to establish “global Britain” on the world economic stage.
The Prime Minister has invited 20 business leaders to Downing Street on Monday evening, The Daily Telegraph can disclose, where they will be joined by Liz Truss, Foreign Secretary, with catering provided by three-star Michelin chef Clare Smyth.
The dinner comes as Mr Johnson seeks to burnish the country’s postbrexit economic credentials as the UK economy is racked by spiralling inflation, supply chain chaos and employment shortages.
Rishi Sunak will host a separate gala dinner in the City alongside William Russell, the Lord Mayor of London, for other leading business figures.
Those among the elite attending Mr Johnson’s dinner in Downing Street also include Stephen Schwarzman, the co-founder of private equity firm Blackstone; Barclays chief Jes Staley; Santander chairman Ana Botin; and Larry Fink, head of Blackrock.
BT boss Philip Jansen and Goldman Sachs boss David Solomon are also understood to be on a list of attendees as are the Microsoft founder Mr Gates and JP Morgan’s Mr Dimon.
The dinner is a curtain-raiser ahead of a summit on Tuesday attended by more than 200 top financiers designed to court investment in Britain and fend off the advances of countries on the European Continent.
Downing Street is understood to be keen to mount a strong response after Emmanuel Macron’s own bid to woo international business. The French president sought to capitalise on the UK’S strict border controls in June by inviting an elite group of global banking heads to a “Choose France” event at the Palace of Versailles.
Meanwhile, Italy’s ministry of industry this week launched an initiative to attract foreign investment.
Tuesday’s Global Investment Summit will include a conference and lunch in central London before officials are whisked off to Windsor Castle by bus with a motorcade escort.
The Queen, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cambridge, Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and Prince Michael of Kent will host a reception to mark the event.
Attendees will be served drinks and canapés in St George’s Hall – the part of Her Majesty’s home that is used to host banquets for heads of state.
It is thought that this will be the first time that some of Wall Street’s bestknown investment bankers have met the British monarch. It will also be the
first time Mr Solomon has visited London since the pandemic erupted early last year. The bank’s third-quarter results smashed analyst estimates yesterday, revealing that profits at its investment arm surged almost 90pc thanks to a deal boom across Wall Street, while its trading division unveiled an unexpected 23pc boost. Its profits surged 66pc to $5.38bn (£3.91bn).
A source close to one of the attendees of Mr Johnson’s dinner said: “This is the UK saying they are open for business. The bottom line is the Government has no money to spend, needs to create employment and generate tax revenue.”
The investment jamboree comes just weeks before global leaders meet for the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow.
A number of deals are expected to be announced at the investor summit with an emphasis on backing green technologies – including the UK’S development of electric vehicle battery production.
‘Engagement rather than containment” – that was George Osborne’s approach to relations with some of the world’s more unsavoury regimes when the now aspiring Mayfair rainmaker was the humble Chancellor of the Exchequer.
What better demonstration of engagement from the current Cabinet than an invitation given to Chinese and Saudi investors to the most prestigious assembly of financial movers and shakers held in Britain in years – a reception with Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, followed by a banquet with ministers in London?
Though the emphasis of the gathering will be on green technology and renewable projects, this government would probably take any overseas money it can get right now. With investor confidence at home and abroad shaken by Brexit, then torpedoed by the pandemic, Britain needs more friends. The question is, who are they? Next week’s event is being billed as the UK’S “largest and most prestigious gathering of global investors and businesses” – over 200 influential figures including Wall Street power brokers such as JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon, Goldman Sachs chief executive David Solomon and Stephen Schwarzman, the multibillionaire co-founder of private equity giant Blackstone. But it is rumoured invitations for two of the world’s biggest authoritarian states that will cause disquiet. Beijing’s flagrant disregard for democracy in Hong Kong and human rights abuses against the Uighur minority in Xinjiang province has left relations with the West at their lowest since the Tiananmen Square massacre more than 30 years ago.
Meanwhile, the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, suspected to have been sanctioned by the Crown Prince himself, led to calls for the international community to sever ties with the Kingdom immediately. There’s never a great time to be breaking bread with despots, but now must be as bad a time as any.
Yet, if Boris Johnson is to ever fulfill his ambition of creating a post-brexit “global Britain”, can it afford to pick and choose?
Having elected to leave the world’s biggest trading bloc, the UK pinned its hopes on a free trade agreement with America. A bilateral, transatlantic free trade pact would be just one of the many great benefits of Brexit we were told repeatedly during the Leave campaign. We would also be “first in line”, our Prime Minister promised in his previous, but no less shambolic, guise as foreign secretary.
Fat chance of that now after Joe Biden signalled a new era of isolationism with America’s hasty retreat from Afghanistan. UK officials are reportedly so desperate to strike a deal that they have entertained the idea of piggy-backing on the United States-mexico-canada Agreement as a way to gain access to American markets through the back door.
With few major trading relationships to speak of, it’s not as if global Britain is an easy sell. Throw in food shortages, a labour squeeze, fuel droughts, and the threat of blackouts, and it’s hard to imagine a queue of investors beating down the door to No 10.
And the message from the Prime Minister is ambiguous to say the least. As if “F--- Business” wasn’t off-putting enough as an investment slogan, his attempt to blame companies for some of the current shortages, though not entirely unfair, has strained relations with businesses again.
But what does “global Britain” really mean anyway? I doubt anyone in government could actually explain it. Should we be focusing overseas ties with more natural English-speaking allies such as the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, or does it mean we are even more elastic about who we take money from?
Our stance on China remains more confused than ever. On the one hand we are uncomfortable with Beijing helping to build Britain’s new nuclear fleet or Huawei technology being embedded in the 5G mobile network. On the other hand, Rishi Sunak has called for trade with China to be bolstered, and investment tsar Lord Grimstone has stated that Chinese investment is welcomed “where it is mutually beneficial” – whatever that means.
And one can only assume from the takeover of Newcastle United football club by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund that we’ve concluded that the kingdom isn’t off-limits, which is as good as saying it can get away with murder. Ministers must explain where the lines are, if they exist at all.
Otherwise, Britain will stand accused of being for sale at any price, which is a terrible look for any country, never mind a modern democracy.
‘I doubt anyone in government could say what “global Britain” means’