Stepfather of boy with EU flag tells ex-Tory MP to apologise for 'cretin' jibe

The stepfather of a boy in hospital has called for David Davis’s former chief of staff to apologise for calling him a “pathetic cretin” in response to a tweet of the child’s EU flag bedcover.

Anthony Hobley said he was stunned to see the tweet from Stewart Jackson, a former Tory MP who became Davis’s top adviser when he was Brexit secretary.

He said Jackson should apologise “to my family and for the tone of political debate” in the country. “I don’t believe people honestly worried about the future of our country should be subject to trolling by senior political figures, especially not when it involves children,” he said.

Hobley said he had tweeted the picture of his 11-year-old stepson, who was in Great Ormond Street hospital recovering from an operation and had been upset to miss the People’s Vote march in London.

On Monday night, Jackson replied: “What a pathetic cretin.” The tweet drew widespread condemnation, including from Brexit-supporting MPs, coming on a day when Theresa May warned MPs not to use violent or offensive language as passions run high.

Hobley said his stepson had dislocated his collarbone playing football and was given a slot for his operation on Friday, having planned to go with his family to the People’s Vote march.

“We stopped off at Great Ormond Street hospital on the day to see him and his mother,” Hobley said. “We gave him his own flag so he could feel part of it, he was still really disappointed. The tweet was intended as a sweet gesture to make him feel involved.”

Hobley said most of the comments were “really nice”, though he had blocked some “extreme” remarks. He had not heard of Jackson until he saw his response to the tweet, which he said was “schoolyard abuse”.

“I was surprised to find out he is former Conservative MP and adviser to David Davis when he was running the UK’s Brexit negotiations,” he said. “Comments like these from senior people in political life set the tone of political debate in our country and I believe harm politics in our country.”

Hobley said the People’s Vote march on Saturday, which organisers said was attended by up to 700,000 people, was “a great family day out … hundreds of thousands families with their children marched peacefully through London calling for a people’s vote with no disturbances and no arrests”.

Jackson deleted his tweet on Monday night and told Politico: “I think it’s awful that people with extreme views on remain like this parent should invade a sick child’s privacy to make a political point.”

The tweet came after a day of condemnation of violent rhetoric language used by some anonymous Tory sources to describe ousting the prime minister.

One Tory Brexiter source expressed deep frustration. “After a weekend of disgusting briefing about knives and nooses, it is so depressing to read David Davis’s key ally attacking the family of a sick child because they campaigned for remain,” the source said. “We should be able to disagree without resorting to this – it tars all Brexiteers with this vile brush.”

The science minister, Sam Gyimah, said those who used violent language were damaging their reputations. “Dehumanising and derogatory language, no matter how strongly you agree, is unacceptable in our political discourse,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “I think that was a low bar, and I hope we do not go back to that. No one can take credibly or seriously people who uses that language.”