Trying to warn Brussels against rejecting UK Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal, Hunt shot for a one-two punch combo: virtually calling the EU a "prison" for member states, and comparing it to the Soviet Union at the same time.

"The EU was set up to protect freedom. It was the Soviet Union that stopped people leaving,” Hunt told the Tory conference in Birmingham, referring to the long-standing deadlock in the UK's negotiations with the EU over the Brexit deal.

"The lesson from history is clear: if you turn the EU club into a prison, the desire to get out won’t diminish, it will grow – and we won’t be the only prisoner that will want to escape,” he added. Hunt himself voted ‘Remain’ back in 2016, but then said he changed his mind because of the “arrogance” Brussels displayed during the Brexit negotiations that followed the referendum.

His words did not sit well with the public. Twitter exploded with critical comments as people called his parallels “disgusting” and said that Hunt should apologize to the people of Eastern Europe, who lived in countries of the then Soviet-led Warsaw Pact.

Users denounced his remarks as “invidious” and said that was just a way to cover his own “incompetence” at the Brexit negotiations. Others argued that it is Brexit that actually left people “trapped.”