Jeremy Corbyn has responded personally for the first time to claims he knowingly met a Czech spy in the 1980s.

The Labour leader - whose spokesman has previously trashed the "entirely false" claims - was confronted with the issue today after he spoke at the EEF manufacturing conference in London.

Delegates booed as a reporter asked if he would give permission for any files held on him by the Stasi, the former East German secret police, to be released.

Instead of answering directly he turned his fire on newspapers for reporting the claims. He replied: "Thank for the question.

"I’m very sorry that the Daily Mail has reduced itself to reproducing some nonsense that was written in the Sun before.”

Asked directly by a BBC presenter hosting the event "are you a Czech spy?", the Labour leader laughed and replied: "No."

The Labour leader turned his fire on newspapers for reporting the claims (
Image:
REUTERS)

It comes after Prime Minister Theresa May said Mr Corbyn should be "open and transparent" about any information held on him by the Stasi.

Mr Corbyn, who was given the codename “COB”, has admitted meeting Czech national Jan Sarkocy.

However the Labour leader insisted he believed Mr Sarkocy, who was booted out of the UK in 1989, was a diplomat.

Mr Sarkocy claimed Mr Corbyn would have known his status, was paid by him, and 15 other MPs were his contacts.

Yet the former spy's claims have been disputed by the head of the Czech intelligence archives.

Svetlana Ptáčníková said: “Mr Corbyn was neither registered [by the StB] as a collaborator, nor does this [his alleged collaboration] stem from archive documents."

"These claims are a ridiculous smear," the Labour leader's spokesman said (
Image:
REUTERS)

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis has also described Mr Sarkocy as an "absolutely untrustworthy person".

A spokesman for Mr Corbyn said previously: "Jeremy was neither an agent, asset, informer nor collaborator with Czechoslovak intelligence.

"These claims are a ridiculous smear and entirely false.

"The former Czechoslovak agent Jan Sarkocy’s account of his meeting with Jeremy was false 30 years ago, is false now and has no credibility whatsoever.

"His story has more plot holes in it than a bad James Bond movie."

It came after Mr Corbyn gave a speech today promising a Labour government would take decisive steps to make it the "servant of industry", not the "masters of us all".

In a speech to the EEF manufacturers' organisation, the Labour leader warned that Britain's "distorted, sluggish and unequal" economy cannot be rebalanced without taking on the power of the financial sector.

"We will make finance the servant of industry, not the masters of us all," he said (
Image:
REUTERS)

He attacked a generation of politicians who believed the City could drive the whole economy and allowed it to exert a "pernicious and undemocratic" control over British politics.

After the attempted takeover of the GKN engineering group by Melrose Industries, Mr Corbyn also promised strengthened government powers to intervene in hostile takeovers.

He said: "For 40 years, deregulated finance has progressively become more powerful.

"Its dominance over industry, obvious and destructive; its control of politics, pernicious and undemocratic.

"The size and power of finance created a generation of politicians who thought the City of London could power the whole economy.

"Out-of-control financial wizardry and gambling were left barely regulated, while the real economies in once-strong industrial areas were put into managed decline.

He added: "No more. The next Labour government will be the first in 40 years to stand up for the real economy.

"We will take decisive action to make finance the servant of industry, not the masters of us all."