John McDonnell says if, as Labour wants, there is a second referendum, he will campaign for remain

John McDonnell meets me at the Workers Cafe opposite Islington town hall in north London. I was expecting a spit-and-sawdust greasy spoon. Instead it is a chi-chi coffee house where hipsters rub shoulders with creative types hunched over laptops.

These days the shadow chancellor is a similar contrast of style and expectation — a self-confessed Marxist firebrand, who believes in street action, doing his best to convince voters that his party is serious about government. He is the scourge of the bankers who dresses like a bank manager.

Labour’s annual conference is a week away, a general election probably not much further down the line and McDonnell wants to tell me about his latest policy, to crack down on tax accountants who encourage companies and