When invoking Hitler went wrong for politicians Boris Johnson has found himself at the centre of a political storm after comparing the EU’s efforts to build a […]

Boris Johnson has found himself at the centre of a political storm after comparing the EU’s efforts to build a superstate to Hitler’s attempt to dominate the continent.

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

While the former Mayor of London acknowledged the EU was using “different methods” to the Nazis, his incendiary comments have been criticised by Remain campaigners.

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He is not the first politician to be caught out by so-called “Nazi Tourettes” in an attempt to besmirch rivals.

Boris Johnson take II

The former Mayor of London suggested Tony Blair “copied” some of the Nazi leader’s traits in his book Sir Winston Churchill, The Churchill factor.

“Look at Hitler…listen to the way he brings them all to their collective climax: with short verbless phrases – grammatically meaningless, but full of suggestive power. It was to become a highly influential technique, copied, among others, by Tony Blair.”

Nigel Farage

The UKIP leader was forced to deny accusations in a letter that emerged from his former teacher that he sang Hitler youth songs as a boy.

Dated 4 June 1981, the letter says he and other schoolboys “marched through a quiet Sussex village very late at night shouting Hitler Youth songs.”

He dismissed the suggestion as “complete baloney”, but an unfortunate BBC glitch saw Mr Farage sporting a Hitler-like moustache after denying the news:

Ken Livingstone

Ken Livingstone was suspended from the Labour party last month after calling Hitler a Zionist, prompting an internal row about anti-Semitism within the party.

“When Hitler won his election in 1932 his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews,” he said.

Barack Obama

The US president has not stooped so low as to compare any of his peers to the Nazi leader, but Republican presidential candidate Mike Hucakabee found himself in hot water after comparing Mr Obama to Hitler on the 2008 campaign trail.

“This president’s foreign policy is the most feckless in Amercian history. It is so naive that he would trust the Iranians. By doing so, he will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven,” he said.

Nick Griffin

The former leader of the British National Party received numerous comparisons to Adolf Hitler in his day, but was rather less interested in the Nazi leader himself.

Ukip anger as Nigel Farage on church mural with Adolf Hitler, Oswald Mosley and Nick Griffin http://t.co/EFpqEH6rjz pic.twitter.com/vCeZNrb59y — Edinburgh Evening News (@edinburghpaper) December 3, 2014

On reading Mein Kamp aged 14, he said: “I found all but one chapter extremely boring.”

Donald Trump

Despite once keeping a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bed, outspoken Mr Trump has yet to call any of his political adversaries Nazis.

But he has been compared to Hitler on a number of occasions, not least from Anne Frank’s own stepsister, Eva Schloss.