Boris Johnson urges MPs to stop Donald Trump-Hitler comparisons, weeks after comparing EU threats to Nazi torture

'I do find it distasteful to make comparisons between the elected leader of a great democracy and 1930s tyrants'

Boris Johnson has condemned opponents for making comparisons between Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler, just months after comparing the EU to a Nazi super state.

Speaking during a Commons debate over Mr Trump's controversial immigration ban, the Foreign Secretary accused Labour of “demeaning the Holocaust” and urged MPs to stop “pointlessly demonising" the US President.

"I do find it distasteful to make comparisons between the elected leader of a great democracy and 1930s tyrants,” he said.

"I think continuing to use the language of appeasement demeans the horror of the 1930s and trivialises our conversation."

His comments came just over two weeks after he likened French president François Hollande to a Second World War German general.

“If Mr Hollande wants to administer punishment beatings to anybody who seeks to escape [the EU], in the manner of some World War Two movie, I don’t think that is the way forward, and it’s not in the interests of our friends and partners," he said.

It is not the first time he has made such comparisons. In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph in May, he accused the EU of trying to dominate the continent in the same way as Hitler or Napoleon.

Mr Johnson claimed European history for the past 2,000 years had been dominated by failed attempts to unify the continent and recreate the “golden age” of the Romans.

“Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods,” he said.

Mr Johnson defended the US President on Monday despite increasing public anger over what many of his critics have called a “Muslim ban”.

The real-estate mogul signed an executive order limiting immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries for 90 days, suspending refugee resettlement for 120 days and barring Syrian refugees from entering the country indefinitely.

However, Mr Johnson insisted Mr Trump’s “bark is worse than his bite” amid accusations that the UK Government was aware the travel ban could be coming into effect last week.

The former Mayor of London defended Mr Trump as the UK’s “friend and partner” but refused to reveal any further content of “confidential conversations” that had taken place between Theresa May and the US president on her state visit.

The clashes came as thousands of demonstrators bearing placards shouted anti-Trump chants in front of Downing Street, after a petition demanding the state visit be cancelled reached 1.6 million signatures.