PM: Nation’s freedom bid is like Brexit

BORIS Johnson has compared the Ukrainian people’s fight for freedom to British people voting for Brexit.

He told the Tory Conference in Blackpool, it was “the instinct of the people of this country, like the people of Ukraine, to choose freedom every time”. He gave as an example “when the British people

voted for Brexit in such numbers.”

He later added: “We don’t need to be woke. We just want to be free, and that’s why talented people are fleeing Russia right now.”

Mr Johnson said Vladimir Putin invaded because he was in a “total panic” about the prospect of a popular uprising in

Moscow if freedom

flourished in Kyiv. Earlier, Home Secretary Priti Patel defended checks on fleeing Ukrainians – arguing some could be Russian agents with bio weapons.

And Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said the war had brought into focus what is important rather than ”debates about languages,

statues and pronouns.”