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People who want to block chlorine-washed chicken from UK supermarkets are "anti-capitalists" who "don't like meat", a Tory Brexiteer has moaned.

Daniel Hannan blasted criticism of the US food-washing regime - which he wants to be allowed on imports to Britain after Brexit .

Using chemicals to disinfect poultry is currently banned under EU rules, but is common in the US.

MEP Mr Hannan has faced fury for putting forward an "ideal" US-UK free trade deal that would allow the practice - and allow US healthcare giants to run parts of the NHS.

Tonight he hit back, claiming "anti-capitalist journalists" and the "leftist press" were scaremongering and companies wouldn't poison their customers anyway because it's a "bad business model".

(Image: Getty Images Europe) (Image: PA)

He claimed he knew about chickens because his dad farmed them, and they wouldn't even be imported from the US anyway.

Mr Hannan told a fringe event at the Tory conference in Birmingham: "You could have scripted the coverage in the leftist press. Only looking at the cover was enough to tell some of our anti-capitalist journalists what the story was.

"That this was all about selling the NHS to corporate locusts who were personally employed by Donald Trump while eating chlorinated chicken."

Backing allowing US firms to bid on privatised NHS services, he said: "How you structure your healthcare system is wholly up to you as a sovereign government."

(Image: Getty Images Europe) (Image: AFP)

Speaking at the event, hosted by the hard-right Institute of Economic Affairs think tank, he added: "I'm going to stop listening to anyone who calls it chlorinated chicken rather than washed chicken.

"A bag of salad contains more chlorine than one of these chickens.

"These chickens by the way, which - I know a little bit about chickens, my father used to farm chickens – so I know enough about chickens to know that the Atlantic is too big to start shipping chickens across. So the whole argument is completely bogus in the first place.

"The opposition is not coming from British producers.

"The opposition is coming from people who don't like America, don't like trade and fundamentally don't like meat."