British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has come under fire, including from his own MPs, after saying Brexit showed that Britons shared the same “instinct” for freedom as Ukrainians.

In a speech to his Conservative Party conference in Blackpool, northern England, on Saturday, Johnson said it was “the instinct of the people of this country, like the people of Ukraine, to choose freedom every time”.

He cited the Brexit referendum in June 2016 as a “famous recent example”.