A BAN on children buying Christmas crackers is down to interference from Europe, a Bolton Euro MP claims.

Children aged under 12 cannot buy crackers under the Pyrotechnic Articles Regulations 2010, which emanated from an EU directive.

Deputy UKIP leader Paul Nuttall said the classification of a cracker as a "pyrotechnic" device was "utterly mad".

He said: "More nonsense in our lives from unelected bureaucrats which further highlights the desperate need for us to be free to make our own rules and run our own lives.

"This legislation is utterly mad and totally unnecessary. On what planet would anyone describe a Christmas cracker as a pyrotechnic device? Only in the cuckoo world of madness inhabited by Eurocrats.

"It's like the bad jokes you find in such crackers but far more concerning as it demonstrates the stranglehold the EU has on every aspect of our lives."