Jeremy Corbyn will go to Brussels TOMORROW to meet Michel Barnier hours before Theresa May faces EU leaders to ask for a Brexit delay

• The opposition leader will see EU’s chief negotiator to discuss Brexit
• Theresa May is due to face EU27 leaders in the Belgian capital hours later 
• Corbyn wants to leave the EU under a softer Labour  Brexit plan
• But he has suggested he could support a new referendum if May’s deal passes 

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Jeremy Corbyn will meet the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator tomorrow just hours before Theresa May faces European leaders.

In a development that will pour fresh pressure on the Prime Minister the opposition leader will met Michel Barnier in Brussels on Thursday morning, the Guardian reported.

The meeting will give Mr Corbyn a chance to put forward Labour’s alternative Brexit plan and also discuss the possibility of a second referendum taking place.

Mr Corbyn yesterday met with the Westminster leaders of the other opposition parties to discuss a new vote, which resulted in a request to swing behind a referendum and stop ‘prevaricating’.

But he also later met with MPs who support a soft Brexit that would keep Britain closely aligned with the EU, potentially including retaining freedom of movement.

Mr Corbyn, pictured today during PMQs, will meet Michel Barnier tomorrow morning, giving him an opportunity to put across his Brexit views hours before Mrs May faces the EU27 leaders at what is likely to be a stormy European Council meeting 

Michel Barnier has been among a host of senior EU figures to play hardball with Theresa May over the length and purpose of a delay to Brexit 

Mr Corbyn said the UK is ‘now in the midst of a full-scale national crisis’ and called on Theresa May to meet with him to discuss his Brexit proposals.

At Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons the Labour leader said ‘incompetence, failure and intransigence from the Prime Minister and her Government have brought us to this point’.

He said with her deal and no-deal both rejected, Mrs May has ‘no plan’, while he is meeting with other parties and EU leaders to come up with an alternative.

Mr Corbyn asked: ‘This is a national crisis. Will the Prime Minister meet me today to discuss our proposals as a way forward to get out of this crisis?’

Mrs May said it was a ‘bit rich’ for him to invite her for talks when he for ‘days and days he refused to meet me’.

She added that she was ‘always happy to meet members from across this House to discuss Europe’.

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Theresa May is expected to ask for a delay to Brexit tomorrow but the EU is playing hardball over the length of the extension to Article 50 – or whether it will grant one at all. There are nine days to go until we are due to crash out the EU without a deal

Mr Barnier yesterday tore into Theresa May’s attempt to keep her delay options open by suggesting she must present leaders this week with a clear idea how the UK wants to stay in.

Michel Barnier told reporters today that any longer extension to Article 50 would only be considered if there was ‘a new political process’ in the UK to justify it.

At a Brussels press conference Mr Barnier stressed that it was ultimately a decision for EU27 leaders at the European Council meeting on Thursday, he said: ‘The EU authorities want to know what the underlying political process which would be the grounds for that extension would be – political process within the House of Commons or in the general political debate in the UK.’

Mr Barnier added: ‘It is our duty to ask whether this extension would be useful because an extension will be something which would extend uncertainty, and uncertainty costs.’

He added: ‘What would be the purpose and outcome? How could we be sure that at the end of a possible extension we are not back in the same situation as today?’

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