Whisper it quietly, but City executives are turning to an unlikely source for comfort on Brexit-related woes: the Labour Party.

Senior staff at HSBC, Barclays, BNY Mellon, Santander, the London Stock Exchange, Funding Circle and industry groups the Association of Financial Markets in Europe, TheCityUK, the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants have all met with the opposition party’s chancellor of the exchequer John McDonnell, City minister Jonathan Reynolds and Rebecca Long-Bailey, Labour’s secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy, in the past six months. They have talked about navigating the UK’s exit from the European Union, according to a person with knowledge of the meetings.