A top Jeremy Corbyn ally has said MPs regularly meet diplomats who they assume are spies, as he defended Jeremy Corbyn's attack on the press over a series of stories about his Cold War past.

The Labour leader has flatly denied that he was a spy for Czechoslovakia during the Cold War and warned right-wing newspapers that "change is coming" following reports on his alleged association with an agent of the communist country.

Shadow international trade secretary Barry Gardiner said the claims, which originally appeared in The Sun, that Mr Corbyn passed information to an agent of the Czech StB intelligence agency during the 1980s were "incredibly stupid".

Mr Gardiner, who is Labour's international trade chief, was asked on Radio Four's Today programme about allegations the Labour leader met with a Czech spy.

Barry Gardiner said that meeting foreign diplomats did not stop someone being a patriot (
Image:
BBC)

Mr Gardiner said: "All politicians are meeting diplomats every day of the week.

"Some of us assume that half the people that we meet from foreign embassies are spies, we just assume that.

"Of course you know that if people are coming from the embassy there is the possibility that they are spies.

"It doesn't mean that you're not a patriot it doesn't mean that you don't do your job as a politician and stand up for this country, of course you meet with diplomats from every country around the world."

The Labour leader hit out in a video yesterday after a string of stories claiming he knowingly met a Czech spy during the Cold War - which he denies.

According to the original report, documents unearthed in the StB archives showed that Mr Corbyn met a Czech agent on at least three occasions, including twice in the House of Commons, during the 1980s, and was given the codename Cob.

The Labour leader's office acknowledged that he had had tea in the Commons with a Czech diplomat, but said any claim he was "an agent, asset or informer for any intelligence agency is entirely false and a ridiculous smear".

Video Loading

Asked what "change is coming" meant, aides said there would be a "review into ownership of media to ensure plurality" if Mr Corbyn gets into Downing Street.

The party also intends to carry out the second phase of the Leveson Inquiry reviewing the relationship between between the police and the press.