Media must do what we want, says activist who attacked firm over its promotion in the Mail

A FAR-LEFT campaign group which has been accused of bullying advertisers to boycott newspapers including the Daily Mail has admitted that it wants to impose its views on the media.

Richard Wilson, who heads the so-called Stop Funding Hate lobby group, told BBC2’s Newsnight that his campaign is trying to force newspapers to follow its editorial line on controversial issues.

In a fiery exchange with the deputy editor of The Sunday Times, Sarah Baxter, he insisted that he does not want to put newspapers on his hit list – the Mail, the Express and The Sun – out of business.

But he boasted: ‘ The end point for us is a media that does the job we all want it to.’

Miss Baxter – whose newspaper is not one of Stop Funding Hate’s targets – branded Mr Wilson ‘arrogant’.

‘You and your activists want to decide what people in Britain can read or not,’ she told him on Newsnight. ‘ That’s very arrogant and selfappointed and very, very wrong for democracy.’

Stop Funding Hate is a small group of hardLeft pro-Remain Corbynistas, who use social media to pressure advertisers to stop doing business with popular newspapers that do not share their political views.

The group has run campaigns against companies such as John Lewis, Marks & Spencer and Waitrose for advertising in the Mail, The Sun and the Express.

Its threats against big retailers have had no success. A spokesman for John Lewis said: ‘Withdrawing advertising on the basis of editoviously rial coverage would be inconsistent with our democratic principles, which include freedom of speech and remaining apolitical.’

However, Stop Funding Hate has recently begun targeting smaller companies with less experience of hostile social media.

Mr Wilson appeared on Newsnight on Monday after greetings card and gift- wrapping chain Paperchase became one of the few retailers to succumb to his supporters’ attacks on social media.

The company became a target after it ran a promotion in Saturday’s Daily Mail, offering readers two free rolls of wrapping paper.

Stop Funding Hate posted a message on Twitter asking Paperchase whether ‘a Daily Mail promotion is really what customers want to see’ after a ‘torrid few weeks of divisive stories’ about trans people.

It posted an image of a column about the transgender lobby, written by Sarah Vine, but did not explain what in particular it took exception to.

Nor was there any explanation of why the campaign, which had pre- Debate: Richard Wilson with Sarah Baxter on Newsnight focused on articles about angry customers and commentators migration, had switched to transgender furious at the retailer’s issues. response, which was described as

Fewer than 500 people endorsed ‘cowardly’ by critics. the message over the weekend, Julia Hartley-Brewer, the Talkeither by sharing the message on Radio presenter, said she would their own Twitter and Facebook lead a boycott of Paperchase ‘for pages, or by posting similar messages making this absurd grovelling of their own. apology simply for advertising in a

However, it was enough to panic national newspaper’. Paperchase bosses into issuing a Times columnist Iain Martin grovelling apology. accused the chain of turning to

The retailer told customers on ‘mush’ and vowed never to shop Monday: ‘We’ve listened to you there again. about this weekend’s newspaper Meanwhile, Christian May, editor promotion. We now know we were of the financial newspaper City wrong to do this – we are truly sorry AM, branded Paperchase ‘total and we won’t ever do it again. cowards’. He added: ‘[They] seem

‘Thanks for telling us what you to have panicked after looking at really think, and we apologise if their social media account and we have let you down on this one. have since grovelled for advertising Lesson learnt.’ in the Mail.’

But Paperchase quickly faced Miss Baxter told Newsnight that another backlash – this time from the stationery chain had ‘blundered’ into accepting the word of ‘a few Twitter trolls’ that the millions of readers of the Daily Mail on Saturday ‘are somehow racists, bigots and hate-mongers’.

‘It has bowed to the wishes of a small number of people, against what is quite possibly a silent majority,’ she said.

‘This is a company bullied by a small army of Twitter and social media trolls using activism as a weapon against the free Press. It’s a very, very sad day for an independent media.’

Saturday’s edition of this newspaper was read by around four million people.

The campaign started off as a relatively simple Facebook group urging people to petition Virgin Media to stop advertising with The Sun, led by Mr Wilson and Rosemary Ellum, a charity worker. But within months, it had broadened its targets to include the Mail and the Express.

A spokesman for the Mail said last night: ‘All newspapers should be deeply concerned at this sinister campaign by a tiny group of internet activists to use social media trolling to shut down legitimate debate in order to impose their own views on the Mail and other newspapers.

‘Anyone who values freedom of expression should be disturbed by Stop Funding Hate’s attempts to apply commercial pressure to newspapers’ advertisers and business partners in order to influence their editorial decisions. If big business was using this tactic, liberal commentators would rightly be outraged.’

‘This sinister campaign’

THE Mail apologises for writing about itself. But this weekend, a body called Stop Funding Hate – which consists of a small band of zealous Corbynites and Remainers – tried to whip up an internet storm after ailing stationers Paperchase offered free wrapping paper to our readers.

Though this paper is read by 4million, the firm issued a grovelling apology to the group after only several hundred people (most of whom would not have been its customers) complained.

In other words, it succumbed to a handful of arrogant, self-appointed activists using online trolling to try to silence a free Press enjoyed by millions and force it to promote their views.

To be clear, we would be just as concerned if big business had used such internet blackmail to try to silence The Guardian for criticising capitalism.

Letting the cat out of the bag, Stop Funding Hate’s founder declares: ‘The end point for us is a media that does the job we all want it to.’

Precisely. And jigger democracy and freedom of expression.