Britain's Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt addresses the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, Britain September 30, 2018. REUTERS/Toby Melville

(Reuters) - British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said that the European Union was not like the Soviet union, in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday.

Hunt had provoked anger by warning the EU on Sunday that it was set up to protect freedoms but the lesson from Soviet history was that if you turned it into a prison then the desire to leave would increase.

Asked on Tuesday if the EU was like the Soviet Union, Hunt told CNBC “No, and they’ve got to be very careful that the way they behave in these negotiations is consistent with European ideals, and I don’t think we’ve been seeing that.”