THE Labour Party is making detailed plans for government, including ‘war-game-type scenario-planning’ for events such as ‘a run on the pound,’ Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said yesterday.
He said, at a Labour Party conference fringe meeting, that the party is preparing ‘detailed implementation manuals’ and drafting legislation so it could ‘hit the deck running’ if elected. At the same meeting, former broadcaster Paul Mason warned the first six months of a Corbyn government would be ‘like Stalingrad’, with attacks from the establishment.
McDonnell said the Party is trying to ‘answer the question about what happens when, or if, they come for us. People want to know we’re ready, and they want to know we’ve got a response to anything that could happen.
‘What we’re doing now, we’re taking every policy commitment within the manifesto and we’re looking to develop detailed implementation manuals. That’s the sort of bureaucrat I am… that’s the sort of bureaucratic work that has to be done in the preparation of almost a traditional government. But we’re not going to be a traditional government; we’re going to be a radical government.
‘We’re going to face all the challenges… and we’ve got to scenario-plan for those… bringing the relevant expertise together at every level to talk through what happens if there is such and such a reaction. 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.
‘We’ve got to start work now… how exactly are we going to manage these industries when we take them back into public ownership? And let’s start doing the detailed work now. Let’s start doing the consultations with consumers or passengers or whoever and also with local authorities and local councils or whoever.’
Many workers think that Labour will have to expropriate the bosses and bankers if it is to carry out its programme.