Writing on Twitter, Hitchens insisted Peterson, who shot to fame in 2016, has an obsessive following. Hitchens’ followers, many of whom backed Peterson, proceeded to exchange retorts with the Mail on Sunday columnist.

Clinical psychologist and lecturer Peterson was relatively unknown until his campaign against political correctness at his workplace, the University of Toronto, hit the headlines.

‘In today’s world if you aren’t far left, you’re seen as Nazi’

The professor uploaded videos in which he said he would not accept the Canadian government’s Bill C-16, which proposed including gender identity and orientation in the Canadian Human Rights Act, thus making it illegal to discriminate based on outward expression of gender.

Peterson said he would not accept new terms like “ze” instead of he or she. With 150 million views on his videos and over 300,000 Twitter followers, the academic who described his thinking as “classic British liberal” has amassed a fan base which the combative Hitchens subsequently challenged.

Posting on Twitter, Hitchens dismissed Peterson’s followers, writing: “I am familiar with what appears to be a cult surrounding Jordan Peterson, and the more I am pestered about it, the more I ignore it.”

But for Hitchens, who himself calls out “politically correct fads,” there was no ignoring what followed.