BREXIT represents "the best opportunity" for young people and would be better for them than remaining in the EU, leading Tory Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg has said.

The high-profile Conservative backbencher spoke out after reports that organisations representing almost one million students have joined calls for a second referendum.

During his weekly phone-in on the London radio station LBC Mr Rees-Mogg said: "In terms of the Brexit debate that the great opportunities for everybody, but particularly the younger generation, are in leaving and looking to the broader horizon of the rest of the world rather than the narrow closed protectionist European field.

"For younger people, leaving is the best opportunity that they could have," declared the Somerset MP.

Mr Rees-Mogg went on to describe Theresa May as the "Geoffrey Boycott of negotiations", saying: "She is playing a straight bat, she isn't giving a great deal away - I probably know as much about her approach as anybody else does.

"But this steady, stable approach is the right one to be taking and is in the national interest."

This afternoon, Michel Barnier was briefing ministers from the 27 remaining member states on the progress of talks with the UK at a meeting of the General Affairs Council in Brussels.

Arriving for the meeting, Michael Roth, Germany's Foreign Minister, said: "As before, we are concerned that there is no clear attitude and no clear position from the British side. Time is passing. We must now make substantial progress, and that is yet to come.

"What preoccupies us above all is the question of Northern Ireland, where we are still awaiting a substantial approach from the British side."

Stek Blok, the Dutch Foreign Minister, noted: "Brexit is an unwise decision which we regret but we respect of course the outcome of the referendum."

Mr Blok said that the Netherlands "very much hopes that we will come to an agreement about Brexit that includes a common security policy", but stressed there were "no guarantees" that a deal will be reached.

Meanwhile, Erna Solberg, Norway's Prime Minister, said her country was open to the UK remaining in the European Economic Area after Brexit.

Last week, the House of Lords last week voted in favour of the UK joining Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway as non-EU members of the EEA, which would allow Britain to stay in the European single market.

“We will cope very well if the Brits come in," Ms Solberg told the Financial Times. "It will give bargaining power on our side too. And it would ease Norway's access to the UK."

In an apparent reference to the UK's unwillingness to maintain the freedom of movement required by the single market, Ms Solberg said there would be "costs and benefits" to British EEA membership.

"You have to accept a couple of things that were difficult in the discussion before Brexit," she said.

Former Education Secretary Nicky Morgan, who now chairs the Commons Treasury Committee, hit out at the language used in the Brexit debate and said she had received an alleged death threat.

People who voiced concerns about the Brexit process were immediately branded "a mutineer, a saboteur or a traitor," she said.