Skip to main content
Donate to the 95 years appeal
Lobbyists & Labour: a look at Lowick
SOLOMON HUGHES delves into a consultancy that claims it 'grew out of the labour movement'
DISQUIETING IMPLICATIONS: Labour leader Keir Starmer and the Parliamentary Labour Party welcome newly elected MP Alistair Strathernto the Houses of Parliament on October 24, 2023.

THE Labour Party was born from the 1900 Labour Representation Committee: rail and dock workers’ delegates persuaded the TUC to try increase representation of “Labour” — meaning the organised working people — in the House of Commons.  

The unions put in money and worked with leading socialists to find good potential MPs. By 1906 this union-backed group of socialists had enough parliamentary seats to rename themselves the Labour Party.

So what does it mean when corporate lobbyists fund the election of Labour MPs, and many of those MPs come from corporate backgrounds? Does this mean a Lobbyists Representation Committee has formed? Do they want Labour to represent their clients — in short , do they want the Labour Party to represent capital?

Take the example of the Lowick Group, one of the many lobbying companies now funding Labour. Lowick are a relatively new lobbying firm, founded in 2017 by Kevin McKeever, previously a partner at a larger lobbying company, Portland. 

Lowick offer to help clients navigate the “corridors of power.” For a fee, Lowick promise to give corporations “strategic advice on government relations,” including both “parliamentary engagement” and help with “local government,” especially “planning applications.”

The new post-election Register of MPs’ Interests shows Lowick paid £2,000 towards a fundraiser for Hitchin Labour MP Alistair Strathern in February, the funds helping his successful re-election campaign in July. 

Strathern is very much a “capital” man. Before becoming an MP, Strathern worked at the Bank of England for seven years, and for three years (2019-2022) at Oaknorth Bank. 

Oaknorth are quite a political bank — they hired Tory ex-chancellor Philip Hammond in 2020. Hammond was promptly scolded by regulators for breaking the rules and lobbying Treasury officials for Oaknorth. 

Strathern is now parliamentary private secretary — a junior, sub-ministerial post — jointly for Rachel Reeves and Ed Miliband on “green finance.”

Lowick helped fund two other Labour MPs from more traditional backgrounds. It put £2,000 towards a fundraising event for Michael Payne’s successful campaign to become Labour MP for Gedling, Nottinghamshire. Payne previously worked for the Labour Group on the Local Government Association. Lowick gave £2,500 to Deirdre Costigan’s successful Ealing Southall election campaign. Costigan was previously a Unison full-time officer.

Lowick aren’t the biggest lobbying firm backing Labour, but they were one of the earliest. Back in September 2022 Lowick gave then shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds a “free“ member of staff “on secondment” for two months, worth £4,000 to help Labour with “stakeholder management” — meaning relations with business. 

This was quite a coup for Lowick, putting them right in the middle of business relations with the future Labour government.

Lowick tries to square the circle of a lobbyist funding Labour by claiming they are especially sympathetic to the party: it says it’s a “consultancy that grew out of the labour movement.” 

The idea that the labour movement grows pro-corporate “consultancies” is novel. As Morning Star readers know in their bones, the labour movement is the broad, social network of trade unions, socialists and grassroots campaigners — the modern equivalent of the folk who made up the Labour Representation Committee all those years ago. 

But this is not who you find in Lowick’s group of clients: Lowick represent US banking giant JP Morgan, rail privatiser First Group and Water UK, the trade body for the private water industry. 

Lowick also represents Barrat Homes and a whole bunch of other private property developers.  

These are firms who want to make tough deals with the government in pursuit of profit, not part of the “labour movement.” Given their clients, when Lowick boasts about “a deep understanding of our new Labour government,” it looks like it’s using its Labour links as an advertising pitch to corporations who want to influence that government rather than a point of principle. 

Lowick’s “offer” is that “from politics to policy, the Labour Cabinet to this new generation of MPs, we are ideally placed to advise on the impact of the new Labour government and the opportunities for your organisation, wherever you do business in the UK.”  They are offering their “Labour” links to provide “opportunities” to “business.”

Lowick is one more small sign that there is a big section of Starmer’s support base that wants to use the Labour Party to build their corporate careers, to use Labour in Parliament to represent the lobbyists and their clients, not the labour movement.

Badenoch 
The Telegraph described Tory leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch MP as a “refreshingly direct communicator” with  “charisma and conviction.” Tory Badenoch fans agree, but it seems she needs  assistance to be a  “communicator”: she is relying on help from a lobbyist and former Theresa May aide to shape her political messaging.

In the latest Register of MP’s Interests Badenoch records getting free “strategic advice and training” from Shaya Raymond, worth £10,000 from March to June 2024, while she was still trade secretary under Sunak’s government.

Raymond was one of Theresa May’s research team back in the 2000s before starting his career as a lobbyist. Raymond currently works for Riverside Advisory, which is an offshoot of larger lobbying firm Pagefield Global: Pagefield do the more public lobbying for big companies, while Riverside provide more secretive “bespoke, discreet and high-end communications to private clients” offering “global reputation management” and “strategic communications counsel” delivered with “discretion.” Between from 2012-2017 Raymond worked at New Century, a lobbying firm known for working for Russian oligarchs including allies of Putin.

Badenoch relying on some private “strategic advice and training” suggests she thinks her own “charisma” and “communication” need help. The fact she was getting this free “comms” advice while a minister suggests she was thinking about how to position herself against other leading Tories, limbering up for a leadership run in the expectation her government would lose the election. 

Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Workers protest outside Google London HQ over the
Lobbying / 6 June 2025
6 June 2025

SOLOMON HUGHES reveals how six MPs enjoyed £400-£600 hospitality at Ditchley Park for Google’s ‘AI parliamentary scheme’ — supposedly to develop ‘effective scrutiny’ of artificial intelligence, but actually funded by the increasingly unsavoury tech giant itself

TREACHERY FORGOTTEN: John Woodcock, seen here in 2015, betrayed Labour under Corbyn. Now that the right is back in charge, he is welcome to schmooze Labour MPs for Ramsay Healthcare
Features / 23 May 2025
23 May 2025

SOLOMON HUGHES details how the firm has quickly moved on to buttering-up Labour MPs after the fall of the Tories so it can continue to ‘win both ways’ collecting public and private cash by undermining the NHS

Sabrina Carpenter performs during The BRIT Awards 2025 at London's O2 Arena, March 1, 2025
Features / 16 May 2025
16 May 2025

Labour’s pop-loving front bench have snaffled up even more music tickets worth thousands apiece, reports SOLOMON HUGHES

Channel Migrants
Features / 9 May 2025
9 May 2025

Secret consultation documents finally released after the Morning Star’s two-year freedom of information battle show the Home Office misrepresented public opinion, claiming support for policies that most respondents actually strongly criticised as dangerous and unfair, writes SOLOMON HUGHES

Similar stories
SCANT REGARD FOR THE LAW: MSI Reproductive Choices Clinic in
Features / 13 March 2025
13 March 2025
Despite using female spokespeople for its campaigns against clinic buffer zones, ADF UK’s board consists entirely of men, with 80 per cent living outside Britain and most funding from its US parent, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES
A teacher and students in a classroom
Features / 20 February 2025
20 February 2025
SOLOMON HUGHES probes the finances of a phoney ‘charity’ pushing the free schools and academies agenda
QUO VADIS? James Lyons He made friends with the Labour right
Features / 24 October 2024
24 October 2024
By hiring a former TikTok PR man as its new head of comms, Labour shows that corporate wheeling and dealing rather than principled politics will be the party’s priority, says SOLOMON HUGHES