A competition to redesign the government’s “get ready for Brexit” poster has been launched by the pro-remain activists behind a nationwide billboard campaign designed to embarrass Brexiter politicians.
The best five designs will be put up on billboards in towns and cities around Britain in what the campaigners, known as Led By Donkeys, describe as a push to give the public more accurate information.
The competition will be judged by the writer-director Armando Iannucci and the actor and comedian David Schneider.
Boris Johnson has already been accused of misleading the public with the government’s Get Ready campaign, which went live at the beginning of September. MPs and experts urged the civil service chief, Sir Mark Sedwill, to intervene to make clear the UK was highly unlikely to leave without a deal on that day.
However, Led By Donkeys has taken a characteristically satirical axe to the £100m advertising campaign, launching a mock-up of a government website and an online tool that lets users design their own “get ready” poster. The competition can be entered by going to ledbydonkeys.com.
Led By Donkeys registered NoDealBrexit.info when the government campaign was first announced and set up a crowdfunding drive to pay for a rival campaign, which has so far raised more than £160,000.
Iannucci said: “All we are doing is taking back control of our billboards. Together, we can spaff posters on to prime advertising space and send a message. That message is: ‘Please help us, God.’”
Will Rose of Led By Donkeys said: “If you absolutely must launch a £100m propaganda campaign at taxpayers’ expense to make Brexit feel inevitable, at least make it good.
“Instead Johnson and Gove have come up with a cross between a supermarket’s own-brand pasta packaging and the 1980s England football kit. It’s a colossal waste of money.
“Think how many nurses and teachers they could have hired instead. Their own analysis shows their policy could lead to shortages of food and medicine but their lifeless, turgid information campaign doesn’t mention any of that.”
The deadline for submissions to the competition is midnight on Wednesday 2 October.
