Britain's opposing EU referendum camps have taken their war of words onto the water as campaigners manning rival boats hurled abuse at each other in bizarre scenes outside parliament on the River Thames.
Crowds gathered on nearby bridges to witness the nautical stand-off on Wednesday as Prime Minister David Cameron was answering questions inside the House of Commons on next week's referendum on membership of the bloc.
With loudspeakers blaring and banners waving, the two sides launched verbal broadsides at each other from the decks as dinghies buzzed around and a police launch kept watch in the background.
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What was quickly dubbed on Twitter the "Battle of the Thames" had begun earlier in the day when campaigners for Britain to leave
the EU sent a flotilla of some 30 fishing boats up the river decked in colourful flags and anti-EU banners.
"Let's put the 'Great' back into Britain. Vote Out and be Great Britain again," read a poster on one of the boats.
The leader of the anti-EU UKIP party Nigel Farage joined one boat, highlighting what the Brexit campaign argue is the damage being done to Britain's fishing industry by European Union quotas.
But as Farage sailed towards parliament, the flotilla was challenged by musician Bob Geldof on a rival boat full of "Remain" supporters who waved pro-EU banners and shouted abuse as their loudspeakers blared out the 1964 Dobie Gray hit "The In Crowd."
Live TV showed small "Out" boats spraying Geldof's vessel with hoses in retaliation.
"You're a fraud, Nigel," shouted Geldof, adding that Britain had one of the biggest fishing quotas in Europe.
Twitter users were quick to draw comic comparisons with the feats of Britain's great naval heroes Admiral Horatio Nelson and Francis Drake while lawmaker Johnny Mercer quipped "Do the guns on HMS Belfast still work?" in a reference to the historic World War Two warship moored further down the Thames.
