The Labour leader was mocked by Tory MPs after a transcript of his speech revealed he would talk about “rat hairs in paprika and maggots in orange juice” should a Conservative Government come to power. The warnings follow a period of apprehension around potential food trade and deals with the US if Boris Johnson were to deliver Brexit, with chlorinated chicken as well as the privatisation of the NHS floating around Westminster.

Speaking today in Harlow, Essex, a notoriously hung seat that swings each election, Mr Corbyn will say: “Given the chance, they’ll run down our rights at work our entitlements to holidays, breaks and leave.

“Given the chance, they’ll slash food standards to US levels where ‘acceptable levels” of rat hairs in paprika and maggots in orange juice are allowed and they’ll put chlorinated chicken on our supermarket shelves.

“And given the chance, they’ll water down the rules on air pollution and our environment that keep us safe.

“They want a race to the bottom in standards and protections.

“They want to move us towards a more deregulated American model of how to run the economy.”

Mr Corbyn’s prospective comments were immediately mocked by his Tory counterparts.

David Morris, Conservative MP for Lunesdale in Lancashire, said: “Labour don’t want to talk about Brexit which is why they’re resorting to this absolute nonsense.

“The only thing on the menu from Jeremy Corbyn is more delay and two more referendums.

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“Boris Johnson, by contrast, will get Brexit done so we can focus on investing in our NHS, tackling violent crime, and reducing the cost of living.”

As well as talking about food standards, Mr Corbyn will draw attention to what he calls Mr Johnson’s plot to unleash “Thatcherism on steroids”.

This, he says, is being done by using Brexit as a cover for pushing a personal ideological agenda of selling off the NHS and crippling workers’ rights.

On this, Mr Corbyn will say: “What Boris Johnson’s Conservatives want is to hijack Brexit to unleash Thatcherism on steroids.

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“Johnson and the Leave campaign promised to rebuild our NHS. Johnson stood in front of a bus and promised £350 million a week for the NHS.

“Now we find out that £500 million a week could be taken out of the NHS and handed to big drugs companies under his plans for a sell-out trade deal with Donald Trump.”

The i reports that the Labour leader will say the Conservatives want to take Britain out of the EU because they knew voters would never back a return to the politics of the 1980s.

He will continue: “Margaret Thatcher’s attack on the working people of our country left scars that have never healed and communities that have never recovered.

“The Conservatives know they can’t win support for what they’re planning to do in the name of Thatcherism.

“So they’re trying to do it under the banner of Brexit instead.”

Washing chicken in chlorine and other disinfectants to remove harmful bacteria was banned by the EU in 1997 over food safety concerns.

Renewed fears over the practice of washing chickens with chlorine were triggered when it became apparent that the UK and US might strike a food deal post-Brexit.

However, Woody Johnson, the US ambassador to the UK describe the fears and reports of the dangers as “inflammatory and misleading.”

The chlorination of the chicken itself hasn’t sparked fears, with the EU in 2005 having said that “exposure to chlorite residues arising from treated poultry carcasses would be of no safety concern”.

What concerns food standard agencies more is the process that comes before treating the meat and how poor hygiene might be more easily allowed.

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