If you voted Remain in the EU referendum you are unpatriotic and need to hold your tongue according to the front pages of the Daily Mail and Express.
Further, the comment page of the latter publication proclaims the only suitable punishment for airing a grievance about Brexit is 28 days imprisonment in the Tower of London.
The front page of Wednesday’s Daily Mail is dominated by a comment headline branding Remain voters “unpatriotic” by engaging in a “plot to subvert the will of the British people”.
Inside the paper the piece details “hysterical” claims from the Treasury about the potential cost of a “hard Brexit”, decrying the “Orwellian” language used in such statements.
It reads:
It is not difficult to discern just why the Remainers are behaving in such a petulant and unacceptable way. By putting a date on the triggering of Article 50 — the formal two-year process for leaving the EU — Theresa May last week crushed their lingering hopes that Brexit was a bad dream that might never happen.
At the same time, they were cut deep by her devastating — and entirely accurate — critique of a metropolitan elite that sneers at the public’s concerns about mass immigration and considers it ‘bewildering’ that 17.4 million people voted to leave the EU.
And concludes:
The Mail entirely shares this view. Is it really too much to hope that the penny might now finally drop with the metropolitan elite, who for decades have ignored the wishes of their fellow countrymen?
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that their contempt for democracy and the public is more to do with their own political ambitions than with concern for the future of Britain.
Meanwhile the Express carries a headline calling for the “silencing” of “EU exit whingers”.
Both papers have been criticised for hypocrisy and effectively calling for the silencing of the democratic rights of 48% of the population.
The Daily Mail and Daily Express have been contacted for comment but are yet to respond.
Meanwhile, Theresa May will allow Tory MPs to back a Labour call for Parliament to be able to “properly scrutinise” her Brexit strategy before the formal exit process begins in an apparent attempt to see off a backbench rebellion.
A Labour source had said there was a “very real possibility” that rebellious Tories could back the party’s motion in a Commons debate today, which calls for MPs to be given proper scrutiny before Article 50 of the EU treaties is triggered.
But May has now tabled an amendment which will allow Tories to back the text of Labour’s motion but adds caveats insisting that the EU referendum result must be respected and that the Government’s negotiating strategy should not be undermined.