A bitter war of words has erupted on the conservative side of Australian politics, with Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie accusing Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce of being “lying cowards” in an extraordinary escalation of his feud with One Nation.

At the centre of the dispute is an animated One Nation cartoon titled Don’t be Hastie, which was posted to Senator Hanson’s social media account in July and remains pinned to the top of her X page.

The video repeatedly uses the word “traitor” in reference to Hastie, a former SAS officer who served two deployments in Afghanistan before entering federal politics.

Speaking to News24 on Wednesday, Hastie left little doubt about how seriously he regarded the attack.

“I would say that Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce are lying cowards,” he said. “I’ll say it again so there’s no ambiguity – they are lying cowards.”

The Liberal MP said the cartoon referred to him as a traitor eight times and also used the insult “gutless maggot”.

Much of the dispute centres on Hastie’s decision to give evidence in the high-profile defamation case brought by Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith against Nine newspapers.

Hastie testified under oath during the case, along with other former SAS soldiers. Roberts-Smith subsequently lost the civil defamation action and is now facing five war crime murder charges, which he strongly denies.

Hastie has argued that attacking him over his testimony also raises questions about the treatment of other veterans who gave evidence.

“Are they saying the same thing of the other 20 SAS combat veterans who gave evidence under oath in the federal court?” he asked.

“Are they also traitors to their country?”

Hastie, the shadow minister for industry and sovereign capability and federal member for Canning in Western Australia, has also pointed directly to his own military record.

He said he had been subjected to a stream of abuse since giving evidence and was now drawing a line under attacks on his loyalty to Australia.

The federal government has reportedly increased security around Hastie and his family following threats and abuse.

Hanson, however, has rejected the suggestion that she personally called Hastie a traitor.

She described the video as a satirical cartoon and said the controversy was a “storm in a teacup”, arguing the cartoon was prompted by Hastie’s position on hate speech legislation rather than simply his evidence involving Roberts-Smith.

“I don’t think he is a traitor, and I’ve never called him a traitor,” Hanson said, adding that she had the “highest regard” for members of the Australian Defence Force.

Joyce has also denied calling Hastie a traitor, saying he had never spoken badly of the Liberal MP and was unaware of the cartoon until the controversy erupted.

But Hastie is demanding One Nation remove the video or publicly stand behind it.

The increasingly personal fight comes at a politically sensitive time for Hastie.

One Nation recently won the Western Australian state seat of Secret Harbour, which substantially overlaps Hastie’s federal electorate of Canning, and the party has made clear it intends to mount a serious challenge against him at the next federal election.

Hastie, meanwhile, remains one of the Liberal Party’s most prominent conservative figures and has regularly been mentioned as a possible future leader.

Hanson has suggested the latest confrontation could be connected to those leadership ambitions, questioning whether Hastie was attempting to build support for a challenge to Liberal leader Angus Taylor.

Whatever the political calculations behind the scenes, the public exchange has turned what began as a satirical online cartoon into one of the nastiest disputes on the Australian political right – and Hastie appears in no mood to let it go.

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