The mysterious anti-Brexit guerrilla campaign plastering the UK’s billboards with awkward quotes from politicians is “going legitimate” after smashing its crowdfunding target.
The group has pasting tweets and statements by politicians, highlighting what it describes as “the erupting volcano of chaos, hypocrisy and incompetence that is Brexit”.
Calling themselves Led by Donkeys, they have raised more than £60,000 in donations in just a few days.
But with great funding comes great responsibility, and in a tweet on Monday they announced they’re “going legit now, working with agencies to buy sites & expose our leaders”.
A spokesman for the group told HuffPost UK that so far the billboards had been “temporarily borrowed”. A large, two-week spot in London can cost around £1,400.
The group’s last guerrilla operation appeared on Monday, with a sign featuring Boris Johnson’s infamous (and alleged) “fuck business” quote, reportedly made at a diplomatic gathering in June of last year.
The spokesman told HuffPost UK it had deliberately chosen a billboard just down the road from the Jaguar Land Rover factory, which announced earlier this month that 4,500 jobs are to be lost, in part, due to Brexit.
He said: “We’d been discussing which politician’s hypocritical and incompetent quote we should highlight next in our guerrilla billboarding campaign and Boris’s infamous uttering was most popular.
“Then we thought it would get maximum exposure if plastered near the JLR plant which is facing job losses because of Brexit chaos.”
The group had tried to do this one by the book but the language proved a problem.
“We’d initially inquired about a legit billboard using the Boris quote but they wouldn’t allow it even if the fuck was asterisked,” he said.
Last week it was revealed Dover had been plastered with four of more posters, highlighting:
- Dominic Raab’s lack of knowledge about the Dover-Calais crossing when he said in November last year: “I hadn’t quite understood the full extent of this, but if you look at the UK and if you look at how we trade in goods, we are particularly reliant on the Dover-Calais crossing.”
- Jacob Rees-Mogg in 2011 saying: “We could have two referendums. As it happens, it might make more sense to have the second referendum after the renegotiation is completed.”
- Dr Liam Fox stating in 2017 that a trade with the EU would be “one of the easiest in human history”.
- Theresa May stating in 2016 that: “Remaining a member of the European Union means we will be more secure from crime and terrorism.
So what drives the group? “We are just a bunch of concerned men with young families who were sneaking out to put up these posters after putting our kids to bed,” he added.
“What began as an idea thought up in a pub last month has snowballed into a national phenomenon and we’ve been overwhelmed by the support.
“[Going legit has] taken some of the excitement out of it and now we are poring over spreadsheets and google maps to pinpoint our next target rather than just going for it.
“What was art for us is now becoming a science but we have a responsibility to those who have sent us money .”
In the wider world of Brexit politics, EU chief Donald Tusk has claimed David Cameron believed the Brexit referendum he called would never happen because the Lib Dems would block it.
In an interview for a BBC documentary to be aired next Monday, Tusk said the then-prime minister told him the Conservative Party would not win the 2015 election outright, so would again need to rely on Nick Clegg to form a government.
The president of the European Council told the ‘Inside Europe: 10 Years Of Turmoil’ programme:
“I asked David Cameron, ‘Why did you decide on this referendum, this – it’s so dangerous, so even stupid, you know,’ and, he told me – and I was really amazed and even shocked – that the only reason was his own party, [He told me] he felt really safe, because he thought at the same time that there’s no risk of a referendum, because, his coalition partner, the Liberals, would block this idea of a referendum.
“But then, surprisingly, he won and there was no coalition partner.
“So paradoxically David Cameron became the real victim of his own victory.”
Cameron last week insisted he did not regret calling the referendum – despite it leading to his resignation.