The widower of murdered MP Jo Cox has hit out at Nigel Farage on Twitter over the former Ukip leader's response to the suspected terrorist attack in Berlin.
Brendan Cox warned Mr Farage was heading for a "slippery slope" after the right-wing politician linked the carnage in the German capital with Chancellor Angela Merkel's policies.
But Mr Farage doubled down when he appeared on radio on Tuesday morning, saying Mr Cox "would know more about extremists than me".
Read more: Berlin 'terror attack' - Man found shot dead in lorry as 23-year-old arrested
Mr Farage had taken to social media in the wake of the outrage, which left at least 12 dead at a Christmas market, saying: "Terrible news from Berlin but no surprise. Events like these will be the Merkel legacy."
The comment prompted hundreds of retweets and replies, including from Mr Cox, whose Labour MP wife was shot and stabbed to death by neo-Nazi Thomas Mair days before June's EU referendum.
Mr Cox wrote: "Blaming politicians for the actions of extremists? That's a slippery slope Nigel."
However, Mr Farage, who led Ukip until November, defended his comments on radio station LBC, saying: "Well of course he would know more about extremists than me, Mr Cox, he backs organisations like Hope Not Hate, who masquerade as being lovely and peaceful but actually pursue violent and very undemocratic means.
Read more: Berlin 'terror attack' - Man found shot dead in lorry as 23-year-old arrested
"And I'm sorry Mr Cox, it is time people started to take responsibility for what's happened. Mrs Merkel had directly caused a whole number of social and terrorist problems in Germany, it's about time we confronted that truth."
Before Mr Farage's Twitter comment, Mr Cox had tweeted: "Terrible news from Berlin. We must pull together to drive out hate in all its forms.
"Far right & Islamist extremists share same hate driven psychology, intolerance towards difference & tendency to violence. We must defeat both."
Mrs Merkel has shifted her policy towards refugees and migrants to the right in recent weeks, including a speech in which she suggested stemming the number entering Germany and restricting the use of face veils.
Germany admitted almost 900,000 migrants in 2015 after deciding to allow in those who had made it to Hungary.
Read more: Berlin 'terror attack' - Man found shot dead in lorry as 23-year-old arrested
Although the numbers had dropped sharply in 2016, Mrs Merkel's CDU party has suffered internal strife and a string of poor election results.
Mair, who killed 41-year-old mother-of-two Mrs Cox as she arrived to hold a surgery in her Batley and Spen constituency in Yorkshire, was handed a whole life sentence in November.
Mair, 53, shouted "Britain first" as he fired three shots at Remain campaigner Mrs Cox and stabbed her 15 times on the afternoon of June 16.
After Mair was jailed, Mr Cox said he had committed the "most incompetent and self-defeating" act of terrorism.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article