One of the Daily Mail’s most passionate supporters of Brexit has been its columnist, Stephen Glover. On the day of the EU referendum he said he was voting for Britain to leave the European Union.

Days after the vote, he criticised the “arrogant effrontery of those wailing for a second referendum” and in the following weeks he wrote columns that betrayed his fear about possible backsliding by politicians.

Now he has opened fire on a new target. In his Thursday column, he launched a full-frontal attack on the Financial Times and its editor, Lionel Barber, on the grounds that the paper advocated remaining in the EU and continues to lament that that British people voted not to do so.

It followed the Mail’s two-page castigation of Barber on Tuesday for his having been awarded the Legion d’Honneur as recognition of his “positive role in the European debate.”

Glover’s column can therefore be seen as something of an escalation in the Mail’s disapproval of the FT editor. In Glover’s view, the FT has “consistently talked down the British economy”. And, in a related argument, he suggests that its editorial stance is influenced by its Japanese ownership.

Before I deal with these points, let me first mention the disgraceful headline (which had nothing to with Glover, of course): “Owned by the Japs, loved by the Eurocrats - is this why the pompous Pink ‘Un so poisonously trashes Britain?”

Japs? The last time I saw that in a British newspaper was in the Sun in the 1980s. It was considered unacceptable then and its reappearance in the Mail reflects badly on the paper, reeking of an outdated xenophobic prejudice.

One of Glover’s major complaints was about the FT’s Japanese ownership. It was “outrageous”, he wrote, that Pearson should have been allowed to sell the FT, “once a great British institution”, to Nikkei, “a Japanese conglomerate which has no loyalties to this country.”

In fact, as was obvious at the time of the sale, and has been even more obvious since, the acquisition has preserved the FT’s future.

Although Glover appears upset that it is “no longer really a British newspaper”, the whole point of the FT is that it is an international newspaper based in London.

Ineed, it was the first paper to grasp the need to move beyond national boundaries (as the Mail itself did years later) and has prospered because of it.

However, there is no convincing evidence that it has since become anti-British, as Glover contended. Nor has there been a scintilla of evidence of Nikkei influencing the paper’s content.

When I interviewed Nikkei’s chairman, Tsuneo Kita, in December last year, he said there was no possibility of his company interfering in the paper’s editorial. And I understand from within the FT he has been as good as his word.

Nor, just as pertinently, has it influenced the paper’s newsroom culture - or that it might do in future - as Glover insinuates.

Glover wrote: “The fascinating question is whether the paper’s Japanese owners are actively encouraging what is going on”. But it is fascinating only insofar as it shows his capacity to indulge in unwarranted innuendo.

Now for the substantive argument in Glover’s polemic. He is, of course, welcome to his views (just as the FT is welcome to its views). But his piece about the “rather austere and sometimes self-important”, if “extremely influential”, FT does not reflect the reality of its stance, either before or after the referendum.

He accused the paper of being “one-sided and almost hysterical” in pursuing its pro-EU line. In order to make his case he has been very selective.

The paper did warn that “leaving the EU would be a grievous act of self-harm”. But its commitment to the European Union has always been tempered by a perspective informed by British sensibilities. For example, it did not support adopting the Euro nor did it favour Schengen.

Glover’s claims about the FT’s post-referendum agenda are even more contentious. He wrote: “It’s almost as if the paper wants there to be a recession, to punish the unruly peasants who dared to defy it in the referendum.”

I read the FT every day, having done so more closely than usual since Brexit, and I cannot see how that accusation stands up.

Glover was probably right to describe the leading article immediately after the referendum as sounding “inconsolable.” But my reading of its leaders since, and the various columnists, appears to show the editor and his writers gradually coming to terms with the unpalatable fact of Brexit.

It has performed as one would expect of a business newspaper, worrying over the possible consequences while making a constructive contribution to the debate about what happens next.

Given the current uncertainty, how could it do otherwise? It has carried what Glover called “negative post-Brexit stories”, but it has also recognised that the vote has polarised Britain, including part of its British readership. That, sadly, reflects the reality of situation where families (including mine) were, and still are, split over the issue.

Glover concluded: “I don’t accuse Mr Barber of being unpatriotic. But I do think the FT feels a decreasing sense of allegiance to this country.”

That opinion reminded me of the Sun’s intemperate attack on the FT during the Falklands war, claiming that it was guilty of treason. The truth then, and the truth now, is that a serious newspaper confronted by a serious crisis should explore the issue without fear or favour.

For the Mail of all papers to accuse the FT of spinning is, I think, more than a bit rich.