John McDonnell: Labour preparing for financial chaos and 'war games' if it wins next election

Emilio Casalicchio

Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell are preparing for political unrest and a financial crisis in case a Labour win at the next election sparks chaos, it has emerged.



The Shadow Chancellor last night said “scenario plans” were being worked up by teams of experts in case a fledgling administration faces “a potential assault”.

A huge crash in the value of sterling and investors pulling their cash out of the UK are scenarios currently under scrutiny, he revealed.

And most intriguingly, he said one team was working on “war game-type scenario-planning”.

The team in question is headed by Richard Barbrook, founder of the group ‘Class Wargames’ which plays out political and military struggles in a board game.

A website for the group - which was behind the Corbyn Run computer game - describes it as “the training ground of tomorrow’s communist insurgents”.

Mr McDonnell said Labour was putting together “detailed implementation manuals” and even drafting legislation so it can “hit the deck running” if elected.

“It tries to answer the question about what happens when or if they come for us,” he told a Momentum event on the fringes of the annual Labour party conference in Brighton.

“What if there is a run on the pound? What happens if there is this concept of capital flight? I don’t think there will be but you never know so we’ve got to scenario-plan for that.

“People want to know we are ready and they want to know we have got a response to anything that could happen. If we can demonstrate that, that will calm things down as well because there will [inaudible] have a reaction.”

He added that Mr Barbrook has “a group of people who have come up with a war-game type scenario-planning for when a Labour government goes into power.”

Mr McDonnell explained that if the public can be engaged in Labour’s plans it would help “build up the base that can sustain a potential assault”.

He added: “More importantly we can build up the popular basis of support that will ensure that assault is not even contemplated.”

Yesterday Mr McDonnell unveiled radical new re-nationalisation plans and vowed to bring "wasteful" PFI contracts back into the public sector.