Danny Dyer became an unlikely remainer icon on Thursday night when he launched into a diatribe calling David Cameron a “twat” and demanding to know why the former prime minister was able to relax in France “with his trotters up” while the rest of Britain dealt with the consequences of Brexit.

Speaking in front of Jeremy Corbyn and Pamela Anderson, the EastEnders actor criticised Cameron for resigning after the Brexit vote and poured scorn on the apparent hypocrisy of him holidaying in Europe.

“So what’s happened to that twat David Cameron who called it on?” Dyer asked the panel on Good Evening Britain.

Co-host Piers Morgan reproached the on-screen hard man and said “I think you’re referring to our former prime minister,” but that only served to spur Dyer on.

“How comes he can scuttle off?” Dyer demanded to know. “He called all this on. Where is he? He’s in Europe, in Nice, with his trotters up, yeah, where is the geezer? I think he should be held account for it.”

As the conversation moved on, Dyer called Cameron “twat” once more for good measure.

Videos of Dyer’s pithy analysis were shared widely on social media, with a number of tweets of his performance being retweeted thousands of times. The BBC presenter Jeremy Vine suggested that “the second TWAT from Danny Dyer is everything”, while the Guardian’s Aditya Chakrabortty said that “in all my life, I have never felt so close to Danny Dyer”.

Edgar Wright, the writer and director of films including Baby Driver and Hot Fuzz, praised him as “our poet laureate”. Dyer’s performance even resonated in the US, where Lena Dunham, the creator of Girls, said she thought of him frequently and urged that he be “let loose on America”.

It was unknown whether Cameron was indeed in Nice on Thursday evening. He famously spent £25,000 on a shepherd’s hut for his garden so that he could write his memoirs in serenity and tranquility. However, he has reportedly been suffering from writer’s block and its publication has been delayed until next year.

The former Conservative party leader has been spotted meeting politicians and journalists around Westminster recently, fuelling speculation he may be angling for a return to politics.

A spokesman for Cameron made clear the former prime minister would not be responding, saying: “That’s not something we will be commenting on.”

Dyer also provided ITV viewers, shortly after England’s final World Cup group game with Belgium, with a refreshingly lucid analysis of the Brexit negotiations.

“No one’s got a clue what Brexit is,” he declared. “You watch Question Time, it’s a comedy.”

When asked by co-presenter Susanna Reid if Corbyn’s explanation of the era-defining political issue had made him any the wiser, Dyer said: “No, I haven’t got a clue. No one knows what it is; it’s like this mad riddle that no one knows what it is, right.”

The moment was the popular highlight of Good Evening Britain, a spin-off of Morgan and Reid’s morning show, Good Morning Britain. The programme as a whole was less well-received, with one critic complaining: “Not content with serving up Morgan for breakfast, ITV are now force-feeding him to us for supper too.”