Journalist Rod Liddle has been reported to two police forces over a joke call to "nuke Glastonbury" after the music festival was embroiled in a string of controversies.
Liddle had penned a column for The Spectator last week titled "And now let's bomb Glastonbury".
In it, he jibed that "a small-yield nuclear weapon dropped on Glastonbury... would immediately remove from our country almost everybody who is hugely annoying".
In the fourth sentence, Liddle added: "I am not saying that we should do this, of course - it would be a horrible, psychopathic thing to do."
Rod Liddle jibed that 'a small-yield nuclear weapon dropped on Glastonbury... would immediately remove from our country almost everybody who is hugely annoying'
THE SPECTATOR/GETTY
He then teased: "One on Glasto, one on Brighton, and the UK would soon begin its recovery, with only a few chunks of gently glowing cobalt-60 left to remind us of what we are missing."
But the veteran writer - and magazine editor Michael Gove - have now been reported to both the Met and Sussex Police.
Brighton's Labour council chief, Bella Sankey, accused the pair of incitement to terrorism as she blasted: "Brighton was bombed in the Second World War and also in my lifetime in a terrorist attack in 1984.
"As the Leader of Brighton and Hove City Council, I am writing to Sussex Police to ask them to investigate this incitement to terrorism published by Rod Liddle & Michael Gove."
While lawyer Tayab Ali, director of the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians, claimed the column was "inciting violence".
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Tayab Ali, director of the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians, claimed the column was 'inciting violence'
He later released a public letter to Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley to lodge a formal complaint over the piece.
"The article, poorly cloaked in satire, appears to advocate, encourage, or glorify the use of a bomb (nuclear weapon) to target and kill attendees at Glastonbury Festival, an identifiable civilian population," he said.
"This language cannot credibly be interpreted as mere satire or hyperbole," Ali continued.
"It constitutes a call for mass lethal violence against a specific group of individuals attending a well-known, peaceful music festival."
Nine countries have access to nuclear weapons.
But Ali specified: "Whilst it refers to a nuclear weapon, those encouraged may utilise a conventional or improvised explosive device or other act of violence."
In his letter, the pro-Gaza solicitor advocate said he believed Liddle's column to be in breach of five criminal laws and warned it "may pose a serious threat to public safety".
FSU chief Lord Young and Reform's deputy leader Richard Tice have raised warnings over free speech following the complaints
GETTY/PA
His and Sankey's complaints have provoked two dire warnings over free speech in Britain as a result.
Lord Young, a Tory peer and director of the Free Speech Union, told GB News: "I can't work out whether these complaints are satirical or serious.
"If the former, it's a great joke in keeping with Rod's original column.
"If the latter, that's incredibly embarrassing."
While Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice, meanwhile, jabbed: "Brighton council leader reports Rod Liddle to the police… She has earned the prize of Muppet of the Year.
"Will she now report me for being nasty too?"
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