Campaigners remind Brexit leaders of their ill-fated predictions

One of the first reactions to the turmoil unleashed on the United Kingdom by the June 2016 referendum vote to leave the European Union was that this just wasn't the British way.

A nation that for years had appeared to be essentially middle of the road, without embracing the political extremes that had beset so many other countries, found itself caught up in polarized politics and a divided society on a scale no-one had seen before. Surely that's not how the British do things?

One thing that is very British, however, is a healthy degree of skepticism about authority figures, which over the years has manifested itself through a mixture of black humor and anger. In the post-Brexit political landscape, that banner is being held up by a Remain supporting group called Led By Donkeys.

The name comes from the term used to describe the disastrously mismanaged and misdirected British soldiers of World War I, known as "Lions led by Donkeys". 

In a few short weeks, the anonymous crowdfunded group has had a major impact, plastering billboards across Britain – and beyond – with politicians' retrospectively ill-advised Brexit predictions, to remind them what they said, and to remind the people what was said to them.

"Like most good ideas it came down the pub just before Christmas, when we were talking about the infamous David Cameron tweet from 2015, 'Britain faces a simple and inescapable choice - stability and strong Government with me, or chaos with Ed Miliband,'" one of the group's members, known only as Richard, told China Daily.

"Theresa May had just delayed the parliamentary vote on her Brexit bill and we were in the chaos that Cameron had warned us about – but he had caused it! We thought it'd be a shame if he deleted that comment, and someone said we should put it on a billboard. Next day my friend said he'd found someone to print up the posters, so we thought why not?

"In the new year we decided to act, so once the children were in bed we went out with some wallpaper paste, found an empty billboard, put it up, tweeted a photo – and the reaction was huge."

Very quickly, a cathartic pub conversation grew into a major international campaign. "The people who are leading the march towards Brexit who should be diminished figures for what they've done, so we want to remind people about the nonsense they spoke – once again, the ordinary British people are lions led by donkeys," said Richard.

"We wanted to make people aware of what these clowns have pitched our country into, based on their political fever dreams. These, their own words, demonstrate their hypocrisy and incompetence. We want people who voted Leave to feel uncomfortable that they've been lied to."

Initially, the group's actions were guerilla – "we temporarily borrowed media real estate from companies who could afford to loan it without us asking," Richard euphemistically puts it, explaining the group's anonymity. 

But now, following a crowdfunding process where their initial goal of ten thousand pounds ($13,100) ended up reaching more than 20 times that amount, everything is done by the book, acting properly and contractually with professional billboard companies through an intermediary who attends all meetings on the group's behalf, and deals with all their administration. "We've gone legitimate - like Al Pacino in The Godfather Part II," Richard joked.

It is not just the government that has been on the receiving end of the group's actions. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's lack of clarity on his own Brexit position was rewarded with a blank canvas. "We were so frustrated with what he's doing that we thought the best way to encapsulate his position would be a blank space - then we asked Labour members to come and write on it for him," he said.

Unofficial Leave campaign group Leave.EU has also been in the group's sights. "I particularly liked the double bill board we put up in Newcastle with them on," said Richard.

"On one we had their tweet about how (Brexit supporting businessman Sir James) Dyson's investment showed how British industry was going from strength to strength, and then next to that the BBC tweet saying how Dyson was moving his company to Singapore. That captured so much of Brexit, the arrogance of the belief in Brexit fairies."

The group's most costly and high-profile sign yet was not in Britain, however, but in Brussels. When British Prime Minister Theresa May visited the city in February 2019, she was greeted by a huge digital display board with her own words from 2016: "I believe it is clearly in our national interest to remain a member of the European Union."

"For May to be confronted with that - I loved it," said Richard. "It wasn't cheap but the impact was very good value for money, it was huge physically and it felt huge too."

As with so many people whose lives are touched by Brexit, when it comes to the future, Richard is not sure what it holds for the group.

"We've all got jobs and families, so I really don't know how long we can keep on doing this. Maybe we'll wind it down and go back to normal life and people will never know it was us," he said.

"What makes me laugh, though, is Brexiteers getting angry and ripping down the words of their leaders because they're so offended by them.  They're sending crybaby letters to their local papers too, so we've got a reaction out of a whole bunch of them, so that feels pretty good."

When the next stage of Brexit – deal, no deal, extension, second referendum, or who knows what else – becomes clearer, the Led by Donkeys team will reconvene, very possibly in the pub once again, to consider their next course of action.

"In just eight weeks, we've attracted nearly 80,000 Twitter followers, raised a lot of money and built a very high profile, so clearly what we're doing is working." He then pauses for a second. "Oh God, we might have to keep doing it ....." Now that is a slogan to sum up Brexit.

Contact the writer at julian@mail.chinadailyuk.com