Morrisons bins Brexit party newspaper 'put in store by activists' after boycott row
Campaigners may have dropped off the Brexit party’s new pamphlet on a news stand at a Morrisons store, according to a spokeswoman for the popular UK supermarket.
Thousands of people reacted with anger on Twitter and some threatened a boycott after a photo appeared online of a pile of copies reportedly seen in a Wrexham branch.
But the supermarket tweeted that it was “not our policy” to distribute party political material, and said the pamphlet was not stocked in the store in north Wales or any other branch.
Nigel Farage’s party say they have published two million copies of the first edition of Brexiteer, a short monthly pamphlet designed to look like a newspaper, with an e-version appearing on the party’s website.
“I guess it was some activists being cheeky,” a party spokesperson told Yahoo Finance UK.
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The photos sparked a bitter Brexit row as opponents of Farage announced they would no longer shop at Morrisons, but some of his supporters argued for “free speech” and asked where they could pick up copies.
Morrison’s tweeted: “It's not our policy to distribute party political material, we have investigated with our Wrexham store and they are not aware of this material being available at their store and the stand is used for local newspapers.”
The tweet was later updated to say staff at the store "can confirm this is not available," suggesting if copies ever were dumped on the news stand they were subsequently removed.
Hi! It's not our policy to distribute party political material, we have investigated with our Wrexham store and they are not aware of this material being available at their store and the stand is used for local newspapers - Matthew
— Morrisons (@Morrisons) July 15, 2019
The party political pamphlet, designed to look like a newspaper, says it is “free for democrats” and carries a large photo of Brexit party leader Nigel Farage with the headline: “We’re turning anger into hope.”
The first two pages do not include any news stories, instead carrying a long opinion piece by Farage promoting the Brexit party, another comment piece warning Britain must leave by 31 October and an advert for party rallies.
A Brexit party spokesperson said more than two million copies had been published of the “campaigning newspaper,” and called the threat of boycotts “typical” of Remainers.
“No supermarket would promote any particular political party, but the threats and vapouring is profoundly worrying for freedom of speech and the ability of people and companies to maintain freedom of conciousness without hectoring and bullying,” the spokesperson said.
A website parodying the paper has already been launched by anti-Farage campaigners, including pieces titled ‘Love Island: why Farage and Trump are the only couple worth watching’ and, ‘Top 5 awful things about the EU.’
Scram News calls its Brexiteer.eu website a “satirical take on the the stomach-churning Farage worship that will inevitably be spewed out by the paper publication.”
Additional reporting by Ben Gartside.
