Brexit Britain will never be able to build a satellite to rival the European Union’s Galileo global navigation system, Jean-Claude Juncker has said in a flagship speech he used to criticise major aspects of Theresa May's Chequers plan.

The president of the European Commission poured cold water on Theresa May's threat that Britain would construct its own satellite unless it was granted similar access to Galileo as the UK has now after Brexit.

Brussels has insisted that will not be legally possible because Britain, which has a successful space industry concerned it is missing out on EU contracts, will no longer be an EU member state.

In a wide-ranging speech in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Mr Juncker repeated the EU’s Brexit red lines. He insisted that there must be no hard border in Ireland and that Britain could not ‘cherry-pick’ access to the Single Market after it leaves the bloc.

Despite ruling out one of the key planks of Mrs May’s Chequers agreement, Mr Juncker did offer Mrs May an olive branch by supporting the hard-won plan’s call for a free trade area between the UK and EU.

In truth, that proposal was made by EU-27 governments before the white paper that has so bitterly divided Conservatives was published.