Stand-up comedian Jason Manford has become embroiled in a Facebook row with the far-right-orientated political group Britain First, after announcing that he had unfriended three people because they had shared video posts by the organisation.

“Nowt more depressing than finding out someone you know is a racist,” the British comedian had posted on Monday (June 29th). However, he was soon inundated with comments from Britain First’s supporters insisting that both they and the group was not racist, before becoming the subject of some pretty transparent smear tactics by the organisation itself.

Jason ManfordJason Manford became embroiled in a social media row with Britain First

Britain First posted a picture of him and Ross Noble (a fellow comedian) posing with a Nazi symbol in the background – when it in fact was a pretty poorly cropped promotional poster of ‘The Producers’, a satirical play about Hitler in which he and Noble had starred. They had to later update the image to erase the swastika.

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Britain First had written as a caption to this picture: “How is it 'racist' to oppose a multi-racial religion whose adherents include black, white, Asian and Oriental people? Is it 'racist' to oppose Islamic extremism? Any man who thinks Nazism is funny is a disgrace.”

Oh dear. Looks like I'm about to become one of their victims!Not like Britain First to take a photo out of context and...

Posted by Jason Manford on Monday, June 29, 2015

Nice try, but Manford glibly responded: "No, Nazism isn't funny, but Mel Brooks' 'The Producers Musical' is. As you know (because I'm, you know, a human being) I am very much against extremists of all belief systems. I also like to put Britain first (note the lack of capital letter). But my Britain is very different to their idea of Britain." 1-0 Manford.

Having dispatched these attempts to undermine him, the 34 year old Salford-born comedian spent most of Monday indulging himself, both laughing off the incident and proving his credentials. At one point, he updated his cover image to a picture of him performing a gig to entertain British troops abroad.

Angry commenters still attempted to pile in, however. He responded to one: “I posted this picture and my profile picture to show that you can be patriotic without (being a) bigoted c***muppet. You should try it.” 2-0 Manford.

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