A new poster Nigel Farage is using in his Brexit campaign has been compared to Nazi propaganda and a prominent white-skinned man appears to have been edited out of the original picture.
The UKIP leader on Thursday published a picture of thousands of refugees crossing into Slovenia from Croatia during the height of the migrant crisis in October 2015.
Breaking point is written in capital letters on the poster, and, "the EU has failed us all" is written underneath. A line at the bottom of the poster reads: "We must break free of the EU and take back control of our borders."
After seeing the poster, Brendan Harkin wrote on Twitter that he couldn't help but make a "Nazi comparison". His post included pictures which he later identified as coming from a six-part BBC documentary on Netflix called Auschwitz: The Nazis and The Final Solution.
Subtitles on the images depict fleeing refugees as "parasites undermining their host countries".
Another savvy Twitter user also pointed out that a "prominent white dude" had been removed from the poster image, which was taken from an original photo by Getty.
A white man with a shaven head is near the front of the crowds in the original image, but absent from the poster. However, it is not clear if the man is in fact a refugee or a policeman helping direct the crowds.
The man appears to be wearing some sort of body armor and has white writing across the front of his top, which is similar to that worn by clearly distinguishable officers, in other images taken at the time.
The image shows some of the 47,000 refugees said to have entered Slovenia from Croatia in just a few days after Hungary closed its border to them. That in turn saw Croatia direct them to Slovenia which is part of the European Union's open border Schengen Area.
Fences were later erected in Slovenia to halt the influx of migrants, most of whom were trying to reach Germany where Angela Merkel had pledged to take in over 800,000.
The original picture was used by media outlets around the world. The Mail Online dubbed it "the human tide flowing into Slovenia".
A cross-party group of MPs from all majour parties -Tom Brake, Yvette Cooper, Caroline Lucas and Neil Carmichael - jointly slammed Ukip for the "offensive" poster.
Cooper said: "Just when you thought leave campaigners couldn't stoop any lower, they are now exploiting the misery of the Syrian refugee crisis in the most dishonest and immoral way.
“Europe didn't cause the Syrian refugee crisis and pulling out of the EU won't stop people fleeing conflict and persecution by ISIS and the Assad regime.
“All countries have a moral responsibility to help whether they are in the EU or not and the only way to deal with it is for countries to work together.
“We rely on other EU countries doing asylum checks and coping with this crisis long before it ever reaches Britain's shores - ripping up cooperation with the EU would make it much harder to stop the people smugglers, help refugees or prevent illegal migration. No country can cope with something like this alone."
Lucas added: "Using the innocent victims of a human tragedy for political propaganda is utterly disgusting. Farage is engaging in the politics of the gutter."
Brake said: "It’s a shame that instead of engaging on the issues, Farage and his cronies have resorted to small minded fear tactics and xenophobia.”
And Carmichael added: "Distasteful propaganda like this can only make our immigration challenges worse, not better, and damage community cohesion in Britain.”
SNP's Nicola Sturgeon branded the picture "disgusting" on Twitter.
Sturgeon's opinion was shared by many on Twitter, with the stunt being called "a very low moment" in the EU referendum debate.
One person branded the picture "vile" and wrote: "If most of the country agree with him next Thursday I'm appalled and want to leave myself."
Another pointed out that seeking asylum is a "fundamental human right anywhere in the world".
"A racist, scaremongering poster doesn't change that."