Piers Morgan is a man without a country — sort of.
In the wake of a petition on Whitehouse.gov calling for the CNN host’s deportation back to the United Kingdom, a response petition has cropped up on Change.org from British citizens urging the UK government not to take Morgan back.
“We got rid of him once and why should we have to suffer again. The Americans wanted him so they should put up with him. We washed our hands of him a long time ago,” the introduction to the Change.org petition explains.
The petition, addressed to the British Home Secretary Theresa May simply states: “Stop Piers Morgan from being deported back to the UK from America.”
The request to keep Morgan out includes a nine-minute YouTube video of Morgan, former News of the World editor, testifying before the before the 2011 Leveson inquiry into British press ethics following the mobile phone hacking scandal at News of the World.
The handle “hackergate” posted the petition.
“Hackergate” profile links to a website maintained by Steven Nott of South Wales, about whom Morgan speaks ill in the YouTube video posted on the petition.
Nott confirmed to The Daily Caller in an email that he is the author of the petition.
He told TheDC that be believes Morgan had a lot more to do with the hacking scandal than he let on.
“All of my friends and family used to think Morgan was ok until they realised how arrogant and rude he was when he insulted me at the Leveson Inquiry.” Nott wrote in an email. “They all now despise him and can’t bear to watch him on British TV. He always called Hugh Grant a ‘tedious little man’ and I honestly believe Piers Morgan is the tedious little man in all of this and is way out of his depth.”
According to news reports, Nott was a “whistleblower” in the phone hacking scandal that rocked News of the World — giving information to the Daily Mirror about how easy it was to hack into celebrities phones in the hope of a news article about it, only to see that article remain unpublished.
“It didn’t take me long to realise what I had done. I couldn’t believe I was so stupid to tell a national newspaper how to get hot news for free just by hacking into someone’s phone,” Nott told the BBC in August 2011.
Nott has been promoting the petition on Twitter. His Twitter handle proclaims, “I don’t trust @PiersMorgan.”
“Dear America, you deport Piers Morgan and he’ll be straight back into LA before you know it. We’re sending him back,” Nott tweeted on Wednesday.
The petition currently boasts over 200 signatures (and growing) at the time of publication and is in response to a Whitehouse.gov petition calling for Morgan to be deported for his vocal anti-gun positions. That petition currently has over 71,000 signatures.
“British Citizen and CNN television host Piers Morgan is engaged in a hostile attack against the U.S. Constitution by targeting the Second Amendment,” the Whitehouse.gov petition reads. “We demand that Mr. Morgan be deported immediately for his effort to undermine the Bill of Rights and for exploiting his position as a national network television host to stage attacks against the rights of American citizens.”
Nott referenced the gun issues currently at play in America to TheDC, noting Morgan’s arrogance, and expressing hope that he does not inspire future gun violence.
“He got himself into real trouble recently, spouting off about the gun laws in America and I honesty think he’s making things worse,” Nott wrote. “He’s been winding gun owners up for a while now….let’s hope no more go on the rampage because if there is a next time, it could be because of Piers Morgan’s ranting on Twitter and stirring up trouble which he seems to be pretty good at. Remember, he was once the youngest UK national newspaper editor and was famous for saying to people ‘Don’t you know who I am ?'”
