Elsewhere, a petition to reinstate Lineker, the top scorer at the 1986 World Cup, had garnered almost 200,000 signatures by early Sunday. The move sparked outrage on social media, and the hashtags #ImWithGary and #BoycottBBC began trending on Twitter. According to a recent poll by British pollster YouGov, 73% of participants thought it was handling immigration issues badly.Īs it came under mounting pressure, the BBC announced Friday that Lineker was going to “step back from presenting its flagship soccer program ‘Match of the Day’ until we’ve got an agreed and clear position on his use of social media.” The national broadcaster added that it considered “his recent social media activity to be a breach of our guidelines.” But his latest intervention hit a nerve with the government. Lineker has faced criticism in the past for his use of social media, having tweeted about Brexit, government policy and donations to the ruling Conservative Party from Russian oligarchs. (Lineker did not mention the Holocaust in his public comments.) Home Secretary Suella Braverman. Interior Minister Suella Braverman told the BBC that his comment “diminishes the unspeakable tragedy” of the Holocaust. Suddenly, the presenter, who is known for his lighthearted humor and wry asides, and who has appeared in many commercials for one of the U.K.’s largest potato chip brands, found himself subject to complaints from several members of the government and a target of the right-wing press.

The bill has been blasted by rights groups and criticized by the United Nations Human Rights Council, which said it was in “clear breach of the Refugee Convention” and would effectively result in an “asylum ban.” Last week Lineker called a government proposal to drastically alter the country's asylum policy “beyond awful,” before doubling down when challenged, calling it “an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s.”

A Mutiny in Time by James Dashner