A Belgian pro-EU campaigner has “rickrolled” the official Vote Leave campaign by registering a string of similar web addresses.
Last week, the Vote Leave campaign was designated the official Brexit campaign by the Electoral Commission over Leave.EU and Grassroots Out ahead of the referendum on Britain’s continued EU membership on 23 June.
The designation means it will be given £7m of government money to spend on its campaign to convince people the country is better off at out of the union.
But despite the new injection of funds, no one thought to buy all of the potential web addresses connected to their name.
The official web address is voteleavetakecontrol.org but if a voter were to type in voteleave.com, .co.uk or .net they would be immediately be diverted to a YouTube clip of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up”.
The man behind the prank is Mario Van Poppel, a pro-EU campaigner, who owns a currency exchange business.
He told Mirror Online more than 50,000 people were fooled by his fake domains in just three days.
He said he also registered four pro-EU domains which will direct people to the Britain Stronger In Europe campaign.
"Rickrolling" is a common internet meme where people post a disguised hyperlink which when a person clicks on it - expecting to be taken to some unrelated material - they go to the YouTube clip of the 1987 pop hit.
One of the most famous examples was in 2011, when the official White House Twitter account rickrolled a disgruntled user who said their press briefings were boring on the social media site.
