This message by Jez Hunt has been shared tens of thousands of times across several pages on Facebook in the last few days.
Hunt, who is self-employed, lives in the north of England, and is in his late thirties, wrote:
No one is offended by poppies.
Don't be a idiot.
It's a lie put about by the far right, to make you think that Muslims will get upset. It's horseshit. Muslims sell poppies. Muslims fought, in huge numbers in both world wars, 50,000 of them gave their lives in the trenches for you, they flew spitfires in the battle of Britain for you. Don't believe people who hold the same ideas as the Nazis. You look like an idiot, and you shit on the memory of those that fought.
No one is trying to ban Xmas either.
Hunt told BuzzFeed News that he was inspired to write it by some of the Facebook posts from far-right British parties like Britain First.
"Over the past couple of years, groups like Britain First have published this garbage about poppies offending Muslims," he said, "but a quick search shows that Muslims fought in vast numbers in both world wars, so it made no sense to me. The poppy is the symbol used to commemorate all who fall under the cloak of war, especially those that fought, and that includes Muslims."
He'd seen a few "I don't care who my poppy offends" posts, he said, so he decided to "pop up" a quick update. "A lot of us are offended by stupidity, to be fair, but not poppies," he said.
"These far-right groups pump these lies out every year, as a scaremongering way of trying to sew dissent, and people then start to believe it's true," he said. "Luckily it seems that people are more awake to this lie, as the post went mad!"
"The worst thing about it is that Britain First have sold poppies against the wishes of the Royal British Legion (who own the rights to raise money for injured soldiers by selling them), and kept the money," he told BuzzFeed News.
"They claim Muslims are offended by the poppy, which is untrue, then use their own poppy sales to take money from veterans and soldiers via the legitimate sales of the Royal British Legion. That's pretty monstrous."
Hunt said the post's success "goes to show that people are sick of seeing all the hate-filled lunacy of the far-right cluttering up their newsfeed, and they want a bit of common sense".
"After all," he added, "we are British, we do common sense rather than the embarrassing hysteria of the extremist groups that peddle these kinds of lies. To be honest, it's rather surprised me."
