Police in Lewes in East Sussex are investigating a spate of suspected hate crimes committed overnight on Thursday, including the bricking of an anti-Brexit campaigner’s window, antisemitic graffiti on a garden fence and Nazi symbols daubed on a house.

Eugene Gill woke up to find a half brick had been thrown through his kitchen window where he was displaying a “Stop Brexit” poster, residents in The Avenue found “Fuck the Jews Soros’s Whores Traitor’s [sic]” sprayed in 2ft-high red letters along a fence, and a wall on Paddock Close was sprayed with the slogan: “Save Old Sussex Kill a DFL SOS” with the S’s written in the style of the Nazi SS logo. DFL is a derogatory term for someone who has moved down from London to the South Downs market town.

Gill said the attacker struck his kitchen window at 1.20am but he could not see who it was when he went into the dark street.

“The brick was on the worktop and scrawled on it was the word ‘traitor’ on one side and on the other ‘stop this brick’,” he said. While his son was very upset, he said he was not intimidated.

“We are heading towards an environment where this is the norm,” he said. “It’s being built up with this language about surrender. [In parliament on Wednesday] Boris Johnson looked like a school bully, goading. It’s disgusting. The timing is relevant because I have had the poster up since May.”

A spokesperson for Sussex police said: “The three incidents are being treated as politically motivated and are believed to be linked.”

Lewes voted 52% to remain in the 2016 EU referendum, but re-elected a pro-Brexit Conservative MP, Maria Caulfield, in 2017.

Pam Thurschwell, 53, a Jewish resident, said: “What goes on on the streets and what goes on in parliament are not separate. We have a divided country and this is the fallout. I feel like we are in some version of Germany before the war. This is not about my Jewishness, it’s happening to everyone in this country and it is chilling. There is a problem in No 10 and everybody needs to calm down.”

“Lewes is known for being a creative and open market town,” said Oli Henman, the Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Lewes. “But some people have been left behind and have been deliberately targeted by the Brexit messaging and have gone along with the notion of blaming outsiders. Boris Johnson’s recent language has served to reduce trust in our democracy and intensify divisions, creating an uncivil atmosphere which emboldens extremist views.”

Hours before the attacks, Caulfield said her car tyres had been damaged with nails and screws.

Last week I had my car tyres damaged with nails and screws for the second time. No one cares because I’m a leaver and apparently deserve it. Abuse of MPs and death threats were happening long before yesterday — Maria Caulfield MP (@mariacaulfield) September 26, 2019

In May, another Lewes resident, Ian McCrae, had a “I’m in” campaign poster in his window and saw his house daubed with graffiti, which read: “Macron, trator [sic], traitor”. Another house displaying Stop Brexit posters had its windows put in.

Mick Symes, a senior figure in Lewes Borough Bonfire Society, which itself has been embroiled in rows about blackface, sought to calm tensions on Friday. He wrote on Facebook: “Whatever the political views of the residents of Lewes Sussex, there is total unity in condemnation of such offensive and unacceptable actions. Anyone who has to stoop to this or throw bricks through windows that display a political opinion, has nothing meaningful to say. Whoever you are you need help and urgently. You will be caught and you will be vilified by the entire town.”