SAJID Javid has been drawn into the row over Boris Johnson comparing Ukraine’s fight for survival to Brexit, insisting the PM did not link the two “at all”.
The Health Secretary said the Prime Minister had merely been talking about the “general desire” for self-determination in both cases.
However the Times reported Mr Johnson has privately admitted it was a mistake, and that his remarks had sounded "better written down" than when spoken out loud.
Mr Johnson has been accused of making “utterly distasteful and insulting” remarks in his speech to the UK Conservative spring conference in Blackpool on Saturday.
In words included in the official script issued by the Tory party, the PM directly linked the UK’s exit from Europe and Ukraine's resistence to the Russia invasion, saying both reflected a desire for freedom.
He said: “I know that it's the instinct of the people of this country, like the people of Ukraine, to choose freedom, every time, I can give you a couple of famous recent examples.
“When the British people voted for Brexit, in such large, large numbers, I don't believe it was because they were remotely hostile to foreigners. It's because they wanted to be free to do things differently and for this country to be able to run itself.”
Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said on Sunday it was “utterly distasteful and insulting to
compare the fight for freedom and the aggression of the Russian state to the decision
to leave the European Union.
“If the Prime Minister didn’t mean that analogy, he shouldn’t have made it and he should take back those words and apologise to the Ukrainian people and the British people for those crass remarks.”
Asked about the speech, Mr Javid told Sky News this morning: “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.
“I don’t think in any way he was connecting the situations in Ukraine and the UK, and if we want to know what the Prime Minister thinks about Ukraine and responding, I mean, we can see for ourselves in terms of the support that he’s provided, rock-solid support compared to any other world leader.”
He added: “I think it’s spurious to say that he was connecting somehow the UK and Ukraine in that way.
“I think most normal people listening to that wouldn’t have drawn that conclusion.”
Speaking later on BBC Radio 4, Mr Javid insisted Mr Johnson “was talking about the general desire for people, no matter who they are, where they live, for self determination, and that can be in any setting, in any country.
“I don’t think at all he was trying to link the specific situation in Ukraine with the UK.”
He also criticised Vladimir Putin for being a “compulsive liar”.
On Sunday, Chancellor Rishi Sunak also denied the Prime Minister had been making a direct link between the two events, saying they were not comparable.
He told BBC’s Sunday Morning show: “He was not directly comparing those two things - he was talking about freedom in general. Those two situation are not directly comparable.”
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