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Julie Burchill suggests anyone who thinks her Lilibet tweet was racist is a ‘snowflake sociopath’

Columnist says her use of the word ‘it’ is what ‘triggered’ people

Matt Mathers
Tuesday 15 June 2021 15:20 BST
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Related video: People react to the name Lilibet Diana

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Julie Burchill has claimed anyone who believes her tweet about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's baby Lilibet was racist is a "socialist snowflake".

The newspaper columnist says she was sacked from her role at the Daily Telegraph earlier this month after posting the remarks online.

Writing on Twitter, Ms Burchill said: “What a missed opportunity! They could have called it Georgina Floydina!”.

The post was a reference to George Floyd, the unarmed black man murdered by a white police officer last summer in Minneapolis, leading to protests around the world.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have both previously expressed their support for racial equality.

Ms Burchill's post was met with a backlash on social media, where it was described as “disgusting racism” and “despicable”.

But writing in the Daily Mail on Tuesday, she was unrepentant about the comments and hit out at her critics.

"The fact that I had called the baby 'It' seemed to trigger the snowflake sociopaths particularly, so I put that straight, posting: 'I called the baby it as a nod to non-binary BS — and if you think you can make me respect a violent criminal who once held a gun to a pregnant woman's stomach, you're in for a very long wait. Have a good time with your pearl-clutching life-wasting woo-woo, clowns!'", she wrote:

Ms Burhchill announced a day after posting the remarks that she had been sacked by the Telegraph.

“I’ve been sacked by the Telegraph – it’s been a lovely five years, and I’ll always be grateful to them for ending my wilderness years,” she wrote on Facebook.

“However, I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t often moaned to my husband recently about them always rejecting my edgy column ideas and giving me more pedestrian ones – which I’ve done splendidly anyway.”

In March, the columnist was forced to apologise and pay "substantial damages" to journalist and political commentator Ash Sarkar over a series of social media posts in which she alleged she was an Islamist extremist who worshipped a paedophile.

Responding to Ms Burchill’s apology in an op-ed for The Guardian, Ms Sarkar described the many offensive posts she had received in response to the affair and revealed the toll it had taken on her wellbeing.

“The intensity of the abuse, along with Burchill’s continuing derogatory posts about me, severely affected my mental health. I couldn’t sleep, and had bouts of trembling and heart palpitations. For the first time in my life, I was prescribed anti-anxiety medication,” she wrote.

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