HATE-FILLED MOB TARGETS THREE letters REES-MOGG’S SON AGED 12
A MOB of hardline anti-Brexit protesters hounded Jacob Rees-Mogg and his 12-yearold son in the street after yesterday’s crunch vote, shouting: ‘Shame on you.’
About 30 campaigners barracked the Leader of the Commons and his son Peter as they walked from Parliament to the family’s £5 million home nearby.
A dozen police officers formed a protective ring around the pair as protesters booed, whistled, swore and yelled ‘traitor’.
The officers then lined up across the street near Mr Rees-Mogg’s five-storey mansion to prevent activists pursuing him to his front door. Cabinet colleague Michael Gove also had a 12-strong police escort to leave Westminster, while Business Secretary Andrew Leadsom required protection from the ‘frightening’ mob.
She later tweeted: ‘Why do the so-called People’s Vote protesters think it’s OK to abuse, intimidate and scream in the face of someone they don’t agree with?’
The ugly scenes came after tens of thousands of Remain supporters marched on Westminster for a mass rally to coincide with the Commons debate.
A centre-piece of the protest was a carnival float carrying a Nazi-style effigy of Boris Johnson’s adviser Dominic Cummings. Controlling a ‘puppet’ Prime Minister, the figure had ‘Demonic Cummings’ written on the side of its head and wore a brown shirt, an SS-style armband and a Union Jack in place of a ‘Hitler’ moustache.
The float was organised by pro-Remain campaign group EU Flag Mafia and designed by controversial German artist Jacques Tilly. He has previously designed papier mache figurines of Islamist suicide bombers and one depicting former Prime Minister Theresa May with a ‘Brexit’ gun in her mouth. Phil Jeanes, of EU Flag Mafia, drove the sculpture to the UK from the German city of Dusseldorf and last night defended the Nazi imagery.
‘We’ve got a Prime Minister who is a puppet and… an unelected special adviser who has very strong Right- wing views... So putting him in a brown shirt and Nazi-style armbands brings us back to what was happening in the 1930s in Germany,’ said the 67-year-old.
Videos posted online show Mr Rees-Mogg’s son Peter appearing to look anxious as protesters barracked his father and police formed a phalanx around them. After the mob was blocked from following any further, one protester was heard declaring: ‘Back to the pub.’
Mr Rees-Mogg last night mocked the protesters for being ‘ruder’ than the climate change demonstrators who have brought chaos to parts of London. ‘ I think the Remainiacs aren’t as well-mannered as the Extinction Rebellion people,’ he said.
‘I was planning to saunter home but my private office said the police wanted to take me back. I thought it was going to be one policeman and it turned out to be a posse.’
He insisted that his son, who had watched much of the stormy Commons debate from a visitors’ gallery, had been ‘excited’ rather than frightened by the mob.
Tory MP Tom Tugendhat said the scenes were a ‘sad statement on what we have become’. Security Minister Brandon Lewis tweeted: ‘Shocking that anyone feels this is right way to behave and to use police time up. Jacob Rees-Mogg showing real class in his composure.’ Mr Rees- Mogg’s sister Annunziata, a Brexit Party MEP, said: ‘I keep forgetting that the Remoaners are the
nice guys.’ A People’s Vote spokesman said: ‘We don’t endorse anybody being followed or barracked by protesters on their way home.’ Asked about the Cummings effigy, the spokesman said he could not comment as he had not seen the float. Meanwhile, Labour frontbencher Diane Abbott was harangued by a far- Right activist after addressing the rally in Parliament Square.
She was pursued by Danny Tommo, a friend of English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson, who shouted: ‘The country is so divided, Diane, it’s so divided. You have to stop this. It has to stop.’
Although organisers claimed a million people marched in London yesterday, the figure is likely to be dramatically inflated.
Campaigners claimed the Brexit referendum march last October attracted 700,000 protesters but expert online analysis put the figure at closer to 82,000.