Boris Johnson has been branded “insulting and insensitive” by a UK former national security adviser for linking the war in Ukraine to Brexit.
Speaking at the Conservative Party spring conference over the weekend, the prime minister said it was the “instinct of the people of this country, like the people of Ukraine, to choose freedom”, with the Brexit vote a “famous recent example”.
The comments sparked a backlash, with Labour condemning the “utterly distasteful” comparison.
Speaking to Sky News on Monday, former top diplomat Peter Ricketts said Johnson should withdraw the remarks.
“The prime minister ought to be leading the nation towards unity in this moment of serious crisis, in Europe he ought to be healing the wounds of the Brexit debate,” he said.
Ricketts was national security adviser from 2010 to 2012 having previously served as the Foreign Office’s top diplomat.
He said: “With Europe he ought to be rebuilding bridges, but he managed to be insulting and insensitive.
“The best thing he could do would be to withdraw the remark and get back to working in a sensible, constructive way with the Europeans, who are not some sort of authoritarian force from which Britain sought its freedom.
“They are our partners and our allies in confronting this massive threat.”
Earlier, health secretary Sajid Javid defended the prime minister’s intervention and said “normal people” would not think Johnson was comparing the struggle of the Ukrainian people against Russia’s invasion to Brexit.
“I think it’s spurious to say that he was connecting somehow the UK and Ukraine in that way,” he said.
“What I heard from the prime minister was the… basically the desire for self-determination in everyone, no matter what country they’re in, no matter what their circumstance, is strong.”