JOHN McDonnell has insisted the Labour leadership’s u-turn on supporting the UK Government’s fiscal charter was a change in “tactics” not policy as several disgruntled colleagues today prepare to rebel against the new Corbyn line.

It also emerged that the UK party leader had contacted Kezia Dugdale, the Scottish Labour, over the weekend about the leadership’s position on the charter. During the “brutal” meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party(PLP) in the House of Commons on Monday, Mr McDonnell stressed to MPs, when explaining the reasons for the about-turn, how they had to “help out our Scottish comrades”.

Ms Dugdale denied she had sought to change Mr Corbyn’s mind, saying she “did not warn anyone off”. But she added: “I did speak to Jeremy Corbyn and his team over the weekend about the need to demonstrate that the Labour Party is the only anti-austerity party in the UK; so it is a good move."

Mr McDonnell explained he had changed his mind on the charter for budget responsibility - which commits the Government to balancing the books over three years and budget surpluses in the years thereafter - after meeting families affected by the closure of the Redcar steelworks.

The London MP claimed he had viewed the charter as "meaningless" and had intended to "ridicule" it in the Commons debate this afternoon yet still vote in favour of it.

But explaining the u-turn, he said he no longer wanted to be associated with the UK Government’s policy.

Although Labour MPs would be urged to vote against the measure, Mr McDonnell insisted "we are not deficit deniers".

He went on: "I haven't changed my mind on that but I have changed my mind on the parliamentary tactics.

"Originally, what I said to people was 'this charter is a political stunt, it is a political trap by George Osborne, it is virtually meaningless, he ignores it himself time and time again, he never meets his targets, so this is just a stunt, let's ridicule it in the debate and vote for it because it's a meaningless vote'."

But he said after meeting the steelworkers of Redcar, who had lost their jobs because of inaction by the Tory Government, the Shadow Chancellor stressed: “It brought it home to me; I don't want the Labour Party associated with this policy."

However, the u-turn and the fact colleagues were not consulted has angered some Labour colleagues.

After the PLP meeting, Ben Bradshaw, the former Culture Secretary, could not hide his dismay, snapping: “Absolute f***ing shambles.” Others branded the u-turn a joke.

Mike Gapes, the senior Labour backbencher tweeted: "There is now no collective shadow cabinet responsibility in our party, no clarity on economic policy and no credible leadership."

His colleague John Mann branded the u-turn a “rather autocratic” move by Mr Corbyn, noting: "No consultation with the party, the shadow cabinet or the Parliamentary Labour Party; what kind of politics is it?"

Chris Leslie, Mr McDonnell's predecessor as shadow chancellor, said Labour needed a "clear and consistent" policy and indicated he would abstain.

Chukka Umunna, the former Shadow Business Secretary, also said he was considering defying the party leadership by abstaining,

He noted: "One of the reasons we lost the General Election was because we did not have clear messages. When we did have messages, we changed them every single month...Consistency is the absolute key, there's no doubt about that."

Meantime, Diane Abbott, the Shadow International Development Secretary, dismissed the row as a "process story" while Clive Lewis, the Shadow Energy Minister, said while the policy was "not perfect", he was now happy with Labour’s position.