Labour’s marquee business proposal from its party conference this week, which boils down to forcing publicly listed business to hand over 10 per cent of shares to workers, is likely to trigger a rash of court challenges if implemented.

The party leadership might have temporarily rejoiced in John McDonnell’s high-profile announcement as they scrambled in Liverpool to deflect attention from Labour’s divisions over Brexit, but corporate lawyers predict that businesses and shareholders will not warm to the proposals.

Groups such as the Institute of Directors and the British Chamber of Commerce led immediate criticism of the proposal, but lawyers soon followed. “The plan is an outright attack on traditional and accepted capitalist structures,” said a partner at one of the City of London’s largest global