Brexiteer ‘spat at’ children’s author Michael Morpurgo for wearing pro-EU badge

Writer reveals ‘horrible’ attack happened at Sidmouth folk festival last month

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Michael Morpurgo has revealed he was “spat at” by a Brexit supporter for wearing a pro-EU badge at Sidmouth folk festival last month.

The children’s author was wearing a blue badge with a ring of stars and the words “Bollocks to Brexit” on it at the time of the attack in Devon in August.

“I’ve been spat at,” Morpurgo told The Guardian. “I went to Sidmouth folk festival – quite a peaceable part of the world, you would have thought…

“It was horrible. I was very upset. [The man] looked at me with an unbelievable dislike. I can’t think of a time in my life when that would have happened.”

He added: “We’re almost coming to a civil war situation where there’s so much hate.”

Morpurgo, who is best known for writing War Horse, takes on the refugee crisis in his latest book, Boy Giant, an update of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.

Boy Giant: Son of Gulliver is published by HarperCollins on 19 September.