An online campaign is urging companies to cease advertising with the Daily Mail in response to its front page coverage on the successful legal challenge to the triggering of Article 50.
Stop Funding Hate began the drive after the newspaper published profiles of the “out of touch” judges who “could trigger a constitutional crisis”.
Branding them “enemies of the people” a day after deriding one as “openly gay”, it also profiled the trio behind the Article 50 legal challenge as “The Ex Model” (Gina Miller), “The Brazilian Hairdresser” (Deir Dos Santos) and “The Plumbing Boss” (Charlie Mullins).
The paper described Miller as “sultry” and “cougarish”, drawing attention to her relationship history and clothing, and claiming she “prowls the City...in killer heels and tight-fitting frocks”.
In a Facebook post, Stop Funding Hate announced it would call out every advertiser featured in Friday’s edition, adding: “Demonising the judiciary as ‘enemies’ sets a dangerous precedent.”
Co-op UK, British Airways, Iceland, Asda, Aldi and Morrisons are among those named in the drive, with an appeal to customers to tweet the firms using the hashtag #StopFundingHate. It also congratulated those retailers who did not advertise in the newspaper.
The hashtag soon began trending with many backing the movement.
A spokesman for Co-op told Huffington Post UK: “Under consideration is our advertising for next year and we are looking at whether we can align it more closely with our natural sources of support rather than more generic media; as yet, no conclusions have been reached.
“In addition, we need to be aware of commercial realities in terms of which advertising channels yield the best results for the broadest number of our members and customers.”
In August Stop Funding Hate ran a similar campaign urging brands to pull advertising from the same newspaper, as well as The Sun and the Express.
Lambasting their coverage of refugees and migrants, the trio of tabloids was accused of using “fear and division to sell more papers”.
Within three days, 70,000 people had “liked” the group’s page and more than 43,000 people had signed a petition asking Virgin Media to stop advertising in The Sun.
The page has now amassed more than 90,000 likes and has close to 9,000 Twitter followers.