David Davis' former chief of staff has provoked uproar after appearing to call a hospitalised child a "pathetic cretin".
Stewart Jackson, a former Conservative MP, was responding to a Twitter user who had posted a picture of his ill stepson draped in an EU flag.
The former Brexit secretary's top aide was widely condemned for the comment, with other MPs demanding he make a "grovelling apology".
Mr Jackson posted the comment in response to a tweet from a member of the public saying his stepson had been "gutted" to miss Saturday's People's Vote and The Independent's March for the Future, which saw up to 700,000 people take to the streets of London to demand a fresh referendum on Brexit.
The man, Anthony Hobley, wrote on Twitter: "My stepson had an operation yesterday at Great Ormond Street. He's incredibly brave but gutted he can't be at the People's Vote March today with his brothers and sisters. You can see he'll be there in spirit and his brothers are saluting him with a dab."
The post was accompanied by a photo of the child in a hospital bed, covered with an EU flag. Another image showed two other children, believed to be the siblings, "dabbing" while wearing "Bollocks to Brexit" hats and standing in front of the same flag.
Mr Jackson replied: "What a pathetic cretin."
Amid an angry backlash, the former MP later deleted the tweet and said the jibe had been aimed at the boy's stepfather, not the child.
Writing on Twitter, Labour MP Wes Streeting told him: "This is beneath you. You should delete it and issue a grovelling apology."
Mr Jackson, who was appointed to work for Mr Davis afte
r losing his seat in 2017, replied: "What sort of individual invades their sick child's privacy at a sensitive time to make a political point about the so called People's Vote? Really. Awful."
It is not the first time that Mr Jackson, who was MP for Peterborough between 2005 and 2017, has insulted a member of the public. Days after losing his seat last year, he called one of his former constituents a "thick chav" on Facebook.
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