Controversial columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown caused outrage today after tweeting that “toffs missing fox hunting” should shoot migrants instead and “use their skins to make top-price shoes”.

For toffs missing fox hunting let them shoot migrants. What fun they would have. Use the skins to make top price shoes. A business op too. — Yasmin alibhai-brown (@y_alibhai) August 28, 2015

The tweet was branded “childish”, “stupidly unpleasant” and “just wrong” by bemused Twitter users:

@y_alibhai What an odd tweet. Have you been hacked? This is childish and unpleasant. — Fiona Unwin (@fionaunwin) August 28, 2015

@y_alibhai Gratuitously and stupidly unpleasant. — Catherine Moorehead (@CJuliaSM) August 28, 2015

@y_alibhai oh wow. This is just wrong. — Matt Burfield (@mattissotrendy) August 28, 2015

@y_alibhai Is your carer with you? There are organisations that can help with your condition. Dignitas for one example… — Peter (@Pietros1) August 28, 2015

Others pointed out that shooting foxes is in fact perfectly legal:

@y_alibhai You do know that *shooting* foxes is legal? You *do* know that? Mostly by working class ppl. Must be awful being a hateful bigot. — State Control™ (@State_Control) August 28, 2015

@y_alibhai @hjoneshojo shows your ignorance of the countryside — T mmy (@tommygilchrist) August 28, 2015

The left-wing journalist is well-known for her controversial comments, particularly against white people. In 2008, during a conversation about jobs, she said: “Don’t apply. It would be great if you went away. White, middle class men. We’d just walk in, wouldn’t we?”

When challenged as to whether this was a racist comment, she replied: “Of course.”

In another TV interview, she said of white men: “I don’t like them. I want them to be a lost species in a hundred years.”

She also described white working-class people as “stupid”, “vicious” and “scum” in a 2009 column that was later ridiculed by journalist Rod Liddle:

“It was white working-class people who fought against fascism and racism in the Second World War, and white working-class people who battled fascism and racism on the streets.”

Earlier this week, the Independent‘s “Readers Liaison Assistant” apologised for a “mortifying” error in a piece by Alibhai-Brown where she misidentified one of Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters as Jewish.