U.K. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has backtracked on comments he made likening the European Union (EU) to the Soviet Union.
“Any sensible reading of the speech would see that this was a passionate request and desire for friendship with our European neighbors going forward. But what I was saying is if the attitude of the EU is that someone that wants to leave the club has to be punished, then that’s not consistent with European ideals,” he told CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, England.
“The EU was partly set up to stand firm against Soviet totalitarianism and I was just pointing out the contradiction,” he said Tuesday.
“That’s why the EU’s attitude does need to change,” he added.
Hunt prompted a controversy after he told the Tory conference on Sunday that the EU was acting like the Soviet Union in trying to prevent members like the U.K. leaving the bloc.
