Piers Morgan petition: 56,000 viewers urge ITV to fire Good Morning Britain presenter

Presenter’s critics call him ‘one of our country’s most heinous figures’

Good Morning Britain viewers are split over Piers Morgan: more than 56,000 people have signed a petition to get him fired, and over 59,000 are in support of a counter-petition to keep him on the show.

The presenter, who has always been controversial, has made headlines in recent weeks for his on-air arguments with politicians over their handling of the coronavirus crisis.

His interview with care minister Helen Whately​ in April, for example, led to more than 3,200 complaints. At the time, Ms Whately accused him of “shouting at me and not giving me a chance to answer your questions”.

The petition calling for Morgan to be sacked describes him as “one of our country’s most heinous public figures”. It was created seven months ago, before the pandemic, and calls him out for alleged transphobia and xenophobia.

It urges people to “wake up to the reality of Morgan’s behaviour”, adding: “Hate crimes are on the rise, transphobia and discrimination over gender identity is becoming commonplace both upon social media and in the real world, and ITV continue to sit idly and let it play out in the name of entertainment.

“It should be obvious by now that this has far surpassed an acceptable threshold, with Morgan’s rhetoric and actions sitting firmly in dangerous territory.”

In response to his haters, who now appear to be targetting him for his attacks on the Tories rather than his perceived xenophobia, Morgan tweeted: “Memo to trolls: the more you try to silence me with foul-mouthed abuse, death threats & petitions for me to be fired, the louder & harder I will challenge the Govt over its handling of this crisis. Lives depend on it.”

The petition supporting him, meanwhile, simply states: “Keep Piers Morgan for his common sense approach to life. He’s also funny!! He’s not afraid to speak out and says what a lot of us are thinking.”

Charlie Brooker recently admitted he left “odd fish” Morgan out of his Antiviral Wipe show because he would have had to be “nice” about him.