Sir Elton John has sounded off about the ongoing painful Brexit negotiations, saying that the Leave campaign made “completely ridiculous” promises and that voters didn’t know what they were getting.

The songwriting legend was speaking to Channel 4 News on Tuesday evening (July 24th) and said that the current state of negotiations, just over two years on from the referendum back in June 2016, is like “walking through Hampton Court maze blindfolded, being turned around 16 times and trying to find your way out.”

“I don’t think people in Britain were told the truth to start with,” Elton continued. “I don’t think they knew exactly what they were voting for. They were promised something that was completely ridiculous and wasn’t economically viable.”

Sir Elton JohnSir Elton John has hit out at the Brexit referendum

“And then it’s got so complicated now I just don’t know what’s going on,” he finished, before rather bizarrely, and probably undermining his own point, adding for good measure: “There’s a new cereal called Brexit. You eat it and you throw up afterwards.”

More: Danny Dyer lays into Brexit and David Cameron with memorable tirade on ‘Good Evening Britain’

As the deadline for reaching a Brexit deal with the European Union looms ever closer (March 2019), many political figures have flagged up the potential for a second referendum, on the terms of the eventual deal that Theresa May’s Conservative government reach (if any is reached at all).

The 71 year old star, who is embarking on a lengthy global farewell tour, was primarily speaking in the context of the launch of his charity’s new campaign to battle the AIDS virus.

He reckons President Donald Trump has “the ability to become the president that ended AIDS… We have the drugs to stop this disease now and all it takes is for Putin, Trump, Merkel, Macron, Trudeau to say ‘let’s do one great humanitarian thing … Let’s just end this disease’. They can do it like that, and that makes me so frustrated.”

More: John Lydon voices support for Brexit and Donald Trump – “the working class have spoken”