LONDON — Nigel Farage has dismissed medical experts who warn that smoking kills millions of people every year as "clever people" who should be ignored.

The former UKIP leader urged his Twitter followers to ignore a warning from the World Health Organisation that smoking kills more than 7 million people a year.

The organisation was welcoming a decision by the Vatican to ban the sale of cigarettes in Vatican City.

"The World Health Organisation is just another club of 'clever people' who want to bully us and tell us what to do," Farage tweeted.

"Ignore."

This is not the first time that the leading Brexit campaigner has dismissed the otherwise almost universally accepted link between cigarettes and smoking-related diseases.

"I think the doctors have got it wrong on smoking," Farage told the Daily Telegraph last year.

—Michael Deacon (@MichaelPDeacon) 15 June 2016