Moral Equivalence? You've Got to Be Joking Mate!

Open Access

Abstract

As the fighting continues to rage in the Ukraine – a war in which the estimates of those killed already range in the thousands (with at least 900 Ukrainian civilians as at March 20th[1] and 2,000 – 4,000 Ukrainian soldiers[2]; and from 3,000 to over 10,000 Russian soldiers, depending on estimates[3]), Boris Johnson saw fit to compare Ukraine's struggle to Brexit: "I know that it's the instinct of the people of this country, like the people of Ukraine, to choose freedom, every time. When the British people voted for Brexit in such large numbers, I don't believe it was because they were 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."