A writer for The New European newspaper has elicited disgust after speculating on how many elderly Brexit voters will die in the winter, and predicting that their grandchildren will “spit on their graves”.
Mike Hind, a public relations consultant who says he can “help my clients get talked about for all the right reasons” on his firm’s Facebook page, wrote: “Wondering how many Brexit voters are no longer with us. And what a bad winter might mean for the wall of gammon.”
The ‘wall of gammon’ is Hind’s collective term for the “gammon-faced white men” he blames for the Leave vote in June 2016 — a curious choice of insult, as he appears to be white, greying, and fairly well-fed himself.
Later, Hind posted an even more inflammatory message: “Tick tock tick tock… (#wallofgammon counting down toward the days their grandchildren will spit on their graves for disrespecting the people who fought & died to create the freedoms they voted away.)”
The timing of Hind’s comments about the young spitting on the graves of the old, on the weekend of Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday, was particularly crass, with Brexit supporters such as Second World War veteran Geoffrey Pattison (pictured) normally being accorded the respect which is due to them at this time of year.
“I felt that the unelected body … this elite of people, the politicians in Brussels, were beginning to try and impose things upon us which I don’t think we needed,” the decorated veteran told an interviewer shortly after the vote.
Another Second World War veteran, Bomber Command pilot Bryan Neely, has also been critical of the idea that Brexit sacrifices the achievements of his generation.
“Winning the peace is certainly not about the UK being outnumbered or overruled in the EU,” he told Breitbart London in March 2017.
“Winning the peace is about being democratic and ensuring peace in Europe continues.”
Dunkirk hero Colin Ashford, 97, and a group of Second World War veterans who met with Priti Patel MP also played an active role in the Leave campaign.
The New European was launched the month after the EU referendum as a platform for diehard Remainers such as Tony Blair’s ex-spinmeister Alastair Campbell, who serves as editor-at-large.
The paper had an initial print run of 40,000 but readership had fallen to 20-25,000 by May 2017, and it has been introducing increasingly inflammatory content to try and drum up interest.
For example, Breitbart London reported earlier this November on a series of cartoons it printed, featuring EU loyalists striking Brexit voters and screaming profanities at them in all caps.
“Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, The New European stoops to new lows by glorifying violence against those who voted for Brexit,” commented former UKIP chief Nigel Farage at the time.
“No longer can they claim to call Brexiteers ‘divisive’. If ever you needed an example as to why the Remain campaign lost, [The New European] is it,” he told Breitbart London.
Curiously, research indicates that 75 per cent of New European readers are over 45, 70 per cent are male, and a disproportionate 25 per cent have an income of over £60,000 a year.
This would appear to suggest that the middle-aged, middle-class, and comfortably well-off men Mike Hind blames for the Brexit vote are, in fact, the main target audience of those calling for the referendum result to be reversed at any cost.