Keir Starmer views the border with former Policing Board vice-chairman Denis Bradley from the Grianan hillfort in County Donegal. Picture by Ben Nunn

LABOUR leader Jeremy Corbyn is expected to use a two-day visit to Northern Ireland to ramp up his party's demand for a new customs union between the UK and EU.

On his first trip to the north since becoming party leader, the Islington North MP will visit the border and meet businesses most likely to be negatively impacted by the imposition of any checks on goods moving north-south or vice-versa.

Mr Corbyn's first engagement will be tomorrow's sell-out lecture at Queen's University Belfast, where he will tell an audience of around 1,000 about the importance of safeguarding the Good Friday Agreement and an open border.

The Labour leader is scheduled to visit Lagan College in east Belfast in the afternoon before a private meeting with the north's main business groups and senior trades unionists.

On Friday he will travel to Derry for more meetings and a visit to the nearby border.

During his two-day visit he will be accompanied by shadow secretary of state Tony Lloyd and for part of the trip by Labour Brexit spokesman Keir Starmer.

In February, Mr Starmer, who visited the border the previous month, confirmed that Labour wants the UK to effectively remain permanently in the EU's customs union.

The Irish News understands that alongside Mr Corbyn, he will use the the visit to the north to reiterate the party's call for a tariff-free trading bloc.

A Labour spokesman said: "Jeremy is looking forward to discussing the vital issues of peace, democracy and trade on this visit.

"We must not allow the current stalemate in Stormont or the Tories' chaotic handling of Brexit to undermine the hard won peace, which both communities struggled for."