LABOUR shadow chancellor John McDonnell branded Tory plans to support the steel industry “bollocks” yesterday after ministers finally secured an emergency meeting with Eurocrats on the subject.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn spent yesterday meeting steelworkers at Tata’s Scunthorpe works, where he pledged to square up to the World Trade Organisation and China to secure a future for devastated workers.

Tata blamed cheap imports when it announced 1,200 redundancies last week — the majority of which will affect workers at the Scunthorpe plant.

Bosses have also said that tariffs for developing renewable energy have pushed up power costs.

Mr Corbyn said: “We cannot allow steel to be dumped all over the world at less than the price of production which is so ruinous to highly skilled communities like this.”

He said Chinese officials had pledged to “come back to us on these issues,” but said Labour would jet out to Beijing if they failed to deliver.

“It’s very hard to contemplate the future of a manufacturing base in Britain where we don’t make the steel which is vital for it,” he warned.

“For the car industry, for the rail industry, for the new railways we want to develop, I can’t see it.

“We need a government with an industrial strategy that is prepared to intervene.”

Business Secretary Sajid Javid announced yesterday that his request for an urgent meeting with senior European ministers had been granted.

But Whitehall said Eurocrats’ approval for state aid would be signed off “by the end of this year,” raising fears that any government assistance could come too late.

GMB national officer David Hulse said British ministers should press EU chiefs to “deal with dumping” as a matter of urgency.

“The EU must approve energy intensive industries including steel not being made to meet the cost of renewables policy,” he added.

Speaking to a rally of steelworkers outside Parliament, Mr McDonnell turned his fire on Mr Javid and his deputy Anna Soubry, who faced the wrath of workers at a steel summit she chaired earlier this month.

“I have to watch my language these days because I’m shadow chancellor,” Mr McDonnell said. “But what Anna Soubry has done is bollocks really. It’s a con job, a publicity stunt.

“And Sajid Javid is a waste of space — it’s almost as if he is just passing through that department.”