Lego Ends Association With Daily Mail Following Public Campaign

Lego has confirmed it is ending its association with the Daily Mail amid pressure from a public social media campaign. The Danish toy manufacturer is one of several household names that have been targeted by the Stop Funding Hate campaign since the summer. Stop Funding Hate says it aims to "take on the divisive hate campaigns of the Sun, Daily Mail and Daily Express by persuading advertisers to pull their support." Lego, which has run free giveaway promotions with the Daily Mail in the past, tweeted at Stop Funding Hate earlier today: "We have finished the agreement with The Daily Mail and are not planning any future promotional activity with the newspaper."

Lego's announcement comes around a week after a father's Facebook post urging the toy manufacturer to disassociate from the Daily Mail went viral. In the post, Bob Jones wrote that the newspaper's headlines have "gone beyond offering a right wing opinion" and said "it genuinely bothers me that a great progressive company like yours" could be seen as supporting the Daily Mail. He argued that the newspaper's headlines "do nothing but create distrust of foreigners [and] blame immigrants for everything." He also took issue with the way the Daily Mail singled out a High Court judge for being "openly gay" after he ruled that MPs must be allowed to vote on Brexit. Lego is the first major brand to withdraw from the Daily Mail in the wake of the Stop Funding Campaign, which has also targeted John Lewis, Marks & Spencer, Waitrose and the Co-Op. A John Lewis representative has told The Independent: "We fully appreciate the strength of feeling on this issue but we never make an editorial judgement on a particular newspaper."