JK Rowling has hardly made a secret of her feelings about Brexit – she’s not a fan, to put it mildly.
Here she is earlier this month, calling for a People’s Vote and branding the, unnamed, politicians who orchestrated it “cowardly bastards”.
So it’s little surprise that the Harry Potter author’s latest gripe centres around enabling the British public to have a say in the nature of the final Brexit deal and, if necessary, a second referendum.
She tweeted on Thursday evening: ”[Theresa] May’s suggestion that a #PeoplesVote would ‘overturn the will of the British people’ makes literally no sense. Who does she think would be voting? The Chinese?”
Then just a few minutes later, Rowling erupted, saying: ”I swear to God I’m trying not to bang on about #Brexit but for FUCK’S SAKE, every time I come out of my writing room and look at the news some more dumbassery has been committed.”
It’s not clear exactly what she was referring to but the tweets were sent around the time it was reported the UK will be worse off with whatever Brexit deal May gets through parliament.
But a few people, including Leave.EU co-founder and Nigel Farage ally, Arron Banks, latched onto the fact that Rowling has a “writing room” - something Banks decided was “pretentious”.
Banks wasn’t alone in thinking that one of the world’s most famous writers should not have an entire room dedicated to the thing that has made them world famous.
But the tweet prompted a flurry of replies shaming a number of other pretentious and totally out of order professionals.
Rowling herself chose a different tack, telling Banks, in Russian, that he is free to spend his money “not on writing rooms, but on expensive lunches with suspiciously rich Russians”.
Rowling’s response highlighted a recent Guardian investigation that revealed Banks held meetings with Russian embassy officials and was offered business deals in Russia at the same time as campaigning for the UK to leave the EU – reportedly a longtime goal of the Russians.
Banks has insisted there was “no Russian money” involved in the over £8m of campaign funding made during the Brexit referendum.
But the founder of Leave.EU is the subject of a National Crime Agency (NCA) probe into the source of payments.
Speaking to the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show earlier this month, Banks said the money had all been from his UK-registered firm.