More than 50,000 people have signed a petition calling for Daily Mail editor-in-chief Paul Dacre to be sacked over the newspaper’s coverage of migration and the EU referendum.

In a direct address to the paper’s owner Lord Rothermere, the petition calls Dacre the “Nigel Farage of newspapers”, saying he “has spun a steady stream of misinformation and fear, adding to a climate where rage and xenophobia flourish”. It also claims Dacre has “damaged the journalistic integrity of the Daily Mail by allowing front page stories to run based on untruths”.

Campaign group Avaaz, which started the petition on Tuesday, said a further 9,000 people had also taken the option to send an email to Mail parent company DMGT.

The petition cites Thursday’s Mail front page which claimed that illegal immigrants found in a truck in east London had said they were from Europe. The story, which was based on inaccurate agency copy also picked up by the Sun, was corrected the following day on page 2.

Rothermere is thought to be significantly more pro-European than his newspapers and their readership. The Daily Mail backed Brexit on Wednesday morning, but its sister title, the Mail on Sunday, declared its support for voting to remain in the EU on Sunday.

Avaaz campaign director Iain Keith said: “The Daily Mail has spread lies and hate and a steady diet of Leave messaging for the duration of this referendum campaign, while offering virtually no space for the Remain perspective.



“Paul Dacre claims to be a champion for press freedom, but this betrays the principles of journalism to an ugly political agenda. Paul Dacre is the Nigel Farage of newspapers and it’s time Lord Rothermere either reins him in or cuts him loose.”

Speaking to the Guardian at Cannes on Tuesday, Mail Online chief Martin Clarke said the Daily Mail does not stoke fears over migration but merely reports existing concerns. In particular, he defended the story about migrants in the van, saying it it still involved people “in the back of a van illegally”.

The Daily Mail had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.

• This article was updated on 23 June 2016 when the number of people signing the petition passed 50,000

