JOHN MCDONNELL has spent much of his time as shadow chancellor playing down expectations of how radical a Labour government would be. This week he came to Liverpool with a mission to raise them. In one fringe event at Labour’s annual conference, he pledged an “irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people.” In the main hall, he promised nothing less than a left-wing shock-doctrine. To cheering delegates he declared: “The greater the mess we inherit, the more radical we have to be.”

Labour’s ambition has gone up a gear. Mr McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn, the party’s leader, hail from the far left of British politics. Yet since taking the reins of Labour in 2015 their proposals have been oddly unambitious. In the run-up to the general election in 2017 the party promised higher taxes and spending, as well as the renationalisation of the railways and utilities. It was a more left-wing manifesto than previous Labour efforts, but hardly extremist. Now, however, the party is developing policies that match up to the men.

Labour’s radicalism is not in its fiscal or monetary policy, which remain fairly conventional, but in its proposed structural reforms. The idea is to “democratise” the economy. The party’s leadership compare their plans to the governments of Clement Attlee in 1945-51 and, more surprisingly, Margaret Thatcher in 1979-90. Attlee empowered the state and Thatcher the individual. Mr McDonnell wants to hand power to the collective, with citizens given a say over every part of the economy.

In Liverpool the party launched a battery of economic policies. Workers would make up a third of companies’ boards. The Treasury’s rulebook on investment would be rewritten to encourage investment in Britain’s ailing regions. Most significantly, workers at big firms would be given a stake in their business. Every company with over 250 employees would have to transfer 10% of its shares to an “inclusive ownership fund”, managed by workers’ representatives. Staff would be entitled to dividends from these shares. Over 10m workers would benefit from the proposal, Labour says.

The policy is motivated by the fact that in recent decades the income accruing to owners of capital has outpaced that accruing to labour. Some research also finds that worker-owned firms are managed more efficiently. Yet the main beneficiary of Labour’s plan would be the state. It proposes a limit of £500 ($660) a year on the dividend that each worker could receive. Anything above this would go straight to the government. At many companies, dividends would far exceed £500 per employee. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that, across the economy, firms would wind up paying some £6bn to the state, far more than would go to workers.

Companies would be likely to respond, quickly. Some would cut dividends. Firms listed in Britain might relist abroad. Others might ask whether, if 10% can be confiscated, could 50%? Foreign investors might avoid Britain, especially as Labour also plans to increase corporation tax.

Previously outlined plans to bring water under public ownership were also filled in. A Labour government would buy out the shareholders of England’s nine regional water companies—at a price to be determined by Parliament—and create “regional water authorities” in their place. Their boards would not be filled with faceless mandarins but by “councillors, worker representatives and representatives of community, consumer and environmental interests” (democratising the economy will clearly take a lot of evenings).

To justify the buy-out, Labour points to a court case over the nationalisation of Northern Rock, a bank that collapsed during the financial crisis of 2008, which in effect ruled that the government was justified in buying it at below-market prices because it was in the national interest. That is a thin legal thread from which to hang a nationalisation strategy.

No pasarán

Why is Labour moving further left now? One reason is that the Corbynites have completed their takeover of the party. They control its ruling National Executive Committee, which last week proposed rule-changes, later approved by the conference, requiring leadership candidates to obtain grassroots or union support before they can get on to the ballot. This shifts things in favour of left-wingers. The conference also approved rules making it easier for members to deselect their MP. Most MPs now back Mr Corbyn’s domestic agenda; recalcitrant ones may face the boot.

If anything, Mr Corbyn now faces greater pressure from the even-farther-left than he does from the centre of his party. Some hardline activists fear that, if elected, Labour might backtrack. They call it “Syrizification”, after the Greek left-wingers who protested but then meekly accepted Brussels’ demands during bail-out negotiations with the EU. Mr McDonnell is likely to keep throwing this wing of the party red meat. Further radical ideas are being discussed in Labour circles, such as introducing capital controls and a four-day working week.

As for the public, Labour believes that Britain wants a leftward turn. In opinion polls, support for raising taxes and spending is at its highest since 2002. More than half of Britons like the sound of the new worker-ownership plan, according to YouGov. Nationalising the railways is popular with the public (and perhaps now with journalists, after many of them returning to London after the conference were delayed for hours by a signal failure). Last year Mr Corbyn said Labour’s manifesto was a mainstream option. Now, the party is going further, says one senior aide: “We are creating the mainstream.”

Such confidence may be misplaced. Labour is at best level with the Tories in most polls. Asked who would make the better prime minister, voters prefer Theresa May to Mr Corbyn, and “don’t know” to both. Asked why the Conservatives are still polling decently, one cabinet minister replies: “Fear of Corbyn.”

The next post-Brexit election will be won by whichever party voters trust more to improve capitalism. Buzzing between fringe meetings, Mr McDonnell repeated his intention to do just that, and “radicalise” Labour’s manifesto. The party’s leftward march is not over.