On Wednesday, a new hashtag began to trend on Twitter in the UK.

“#ResignforChris” urged Labour members who were outraged at the suspension (and likely expulsion) of Chris Williamson, the MP for Derby North, to protest by leaving the party.

Supporters of Mr Williamson angrily denounced the campaign, labelling it a “transparent attempt at psychological manipulation”, and “a Lib Dem scam”. Some Labour members, who had condemned the Derby North MP’s record of Jew baiting, happily endorsed the hashtag, calling for his backers to follow him out the door. The far-left Skwawkbox site even ran an article on the phenomenon, titled “Lazy anti-Labour accounts try to exploit Williamson anger to con Labour members into quitting party”.

But the initiative, which was created and spread by Jews on Twitter, was never intended to be anything other than satirical.

The creator of the hashtag, who goes by the Twitter handle “(((fightingb4ck)))” said that he had seen a blog post stating that Chris Williamson had been referred to Labour’s National Constitutional Committee and that his expulsion was likely.

“Being a professional lurker on the toxic Facebook groups – at least those who haven’t thrown me out  - in the past few months I had seen many people saying that they would resign if Williamson was forced out. I felt that they should be encouraged to do so”, the account’s operator told the JC.

Clare Quilty, whose “#ResignforChris” tweets were shared widely, told the JC that she had “no idea that my tweets would make it among the top trending hashtags or that it would touch such a raw nerve.

“It was intended as an obvious piece of satire, but the fact that it went over the heads of a lot of Williamson supporters made the joke funnier.”

Supporters of Mr Williamson who responded angrily to the tweets were mocked further, accused of “not showing solidarity with a comrade” and being “establishment smear accounts”.

It reached a point where Mr Williamson himself tweeted urging “all Labour members to stay in the party and continue the fight.”

When asked for an actual opinion on Mr Williamson, the “(((fightingb4ck)))” account responded: “What can I say? He’s too thick to even realise that every time he opens his mouth he hurts Corbyn.”

The account operator went on to describe the Derby North MP as “a typical representative of how low the standard is for MPs these days”, citing other examples such as Jared O’Mara, the former Labour and now independent MP for Sheffield Hallam, Lloyd Russell Moyle, the MP for Brighton Kemptown and Emma Dent Coad.

“None of them would have got near Parliament even 20 years ago.”