EU leaders will show their creativity over Brexit by scribbling absent-mindedly during Theresa May’s speech in Florence, they have confirmed.

As the Prime Minister calls on them to be “imaginative and creative” about reaching a Brexit deal, they will pen rough caricatures of her in range of perilous situations, they have said.

After learning Mrs May would call on them to “show vision” in overcoming deadlocked Brexit talks, EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier said: “I’m seeing her being eaten by a massive crocodile.

“No, a toad. A gigantic toad. It’s got blond hair and a hat that says ‘Boris’ on it. And she’s imploring it to be creative and imaginative in reaching an arrangement where she doesn’t get eaten. She’s saying it has a ‘profound sense of responsibility’ not to eat her. But it’s just eating her anyway. It’s eating her up.”

Chief Brexit coordinator Guy Verhofstadt said: “I know what to do here. You use your notepad to make a flip book. The toad can eat her and then use its creativity to create a poo.

“Or get eaten itself by something even bigger. Or just squashed under a massive boot. Really badly squashed. The boot’s massive.

“That’s a bit complicated though. I’ll probably just draw a huge cock and balls.”