UKIP leader vents at Greggs over mock ‘gender-neutral’ rebranding

UK Independence Party leader Gerard Batten has vented at bakery chain Greggs, after reading a parody headline about the franchise.

The most recent leader of the pro-Brexit UKIP attacked the chain on Tuesday (October 30) after seeing a fake headline from a Twitter parody account in a since-deleted tweet.

Guardian Meme Win, a parody account that posts headlines in the style of The Guardian newspaper, had tweeted: “Greggs is to rebrand in a move towards a gender neutral business model following criticism that their name sounds too male.”

Sharing the mock headline, he wrote: “Criticism from who? Probably someone who doesn’t buy from Greggs. A cheese roll is a cheese roll! When is this madness going to stop?”

The leader went on to accuse Greggs of running a “biased recruitment policy” because “almost all the staff [are] female.”

The fake headline comes after a bakery that sold gender-neutral gingerbread ‘ginger persons’ was attacked online.

The family-run Thomas the Baker in York received an onslaught of abuse over its gingerbread, which it named ‘ginger persons’ in 1983.

(Getty)

Batten’s tweet was shared by the official UKIP account, until followers pointed out that the story is an obvious fake.

Twitter users mocked Batten, describing him as “sharp as a banana.”