Led By Donkeys

In the Conservative Party's manifesto for the general election in May 2015, the party promised a referendum on the UK's European Union membership by the end of 2017. In the 2016 referendum voters voted by 52% to 48% to leave the European Union. By December 2018 the UK had not yet left. == Beginning ==

In December 2018, four friends were discussing their frustrations with the ongoing Brexit situation in The Birdcage, a pub in Stoke Newington. All four men had a connection with environmental campaign group Greenpeace; Oliver Knowles and Ben Stewart were employees, and James Sadri and Will Rose had previously been involved with the group. In the referendum, they had all voted to remain in the EU. During this period, the group discovered an old tweet by former prime minister David Cameron. This tweet, dating from before the 2015 election, read "Britain faces a simple and inescapable choice - stability and strong Government with me, or chaos with Ed Miliband". They decided to preserve the tweet by printing it out and pasting it up. Each of them chose a statement from a pro-Brexit politician to go up on billboards as well as "tweets you can't delete", looking for the "most offensive lies, lunacy and hypocrisy" in their view. They settled on the following four old claims: "The day after we vote to leave we hold all the cards and can choose the path we want" (Michael Gove, April 2016); "The Free Trade Agreement that we will do with the European Union should be one of the easiest in human history" (Liam Fox, July 2017); "There will be no downside to Brexit, only a considerable upside" (David Davis, October 2016); "Getting out of the EU can be quick and easy – the UK holds most of the cards in any negotiation" (John Redwood, July 2016). Two years later, by Christmas 2018, with prime minister Theresa May's Brexit deal stuck in parliament, none of these claims had materialised, according to The Guardian. They thought it well described the relationship between the British people and their Brexit leaders. Rose shortened it to #LedByDonkeys. They had the five tweets printed at billboard size. The activists bought a ladder, high-visibility jackets to look legitimate, a bucket, a roller and wallpaper paste. On the night of 8 January 2019 they illegally plastered the David Cameron tweet over a finance advert on a billboard on the A10 in Stoke Newington. They posted a photo of the billboard to their new Twitter account, and asked journalist Marina Hyde of The Guardian to retweet it; this soon resulted in hashtag #LedByDonkeys trending on Twitter. Within a day, their billboard poster had been plastered over with blue paper. == Growth ==

In the time between their day jobs and their family life, at night the group illegally pasted the other four original tweets on billboards around London. The group stated that one of their aims was to spark a discussion amongst Leave voters about the promises of the leading Brexiteers. They therefore chose Dover, a pro-Brexit constituency, as their next location. They selected four additional historical Brexiteer statements, partially from suggestions made by their social media followers, among which was Dominic Raab's 2018 statement "I hadn't quite understood the full extent of this but ... we are particularly reliant on the Dover-Calais crossing". The group has described itself in various ways: "a Brexit accountability project", They did not have a grand plan with big ambitions. Initially, they simply considered it cathartic to do something themselves, namely, hold the Brexiteers to account, which they thought nobody else was doing but should. They said they held them to account by putting the old tweets back into the public space and give people the opportunity to re-read them in "the reality about what's unfolding". According to one of the activists, "making fun of politicians has the ability to break through" the partisan atmosphere a bit. They not only made fun of Brexiteers. They also ridiculed Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn for his ambivalent stance on Brexit with an empty billboard. It was not known who were behind Led By Donkeys for several months. Nobody at Greenpeace knew that two of their staff were among the founders. When political website Guido Fawkes claimed on social media that Led By Donkeys was breaching election laws by overspending, the activists realised that it would not be long before their names would be revealed. To pre-empt this, they arranged an interview with The Observer in order to make their identities public themselves. == Campaigns ==

Main campaign The main campaign of holding Brexiteers to account has been ongoing. Once they collaborated with satirical artist Coldwar Steve on a more elaborate billboard shown at pop festival Glastonbury 2019. '' march in March 2019 As time passed, the activists chose other media besides billboards. They have used ad vans, The banner showed a 2012 quote from David Davis: "If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy". CBS News called it the defining moment of the day. Other projections included a video projected onto the Houses of Parliament, asking if Boris Johnson is a criminal, after the Supreme Court ruled he unlawfully suspended parliament; onto Buckingham Palace saying "Your majesty, your new prime minister is a liar"; and projections onto Edinburgh Castle; Cardiff Castle; the Titanic Museum in Belfast; and in Brussels. Coinciding with the Let Us Be Heard march on 19 October 2019, Led By Donkeys ploughed a message in 40 meter (130 foot) high letters in a field in Wiltshire, saying "Britain now wants to remain". This conclusion was based on a YouGov analysis of 300 polls. March to Leave In March 2019, it was announced that Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage was to organise a two-week pro-Brexit march from Sunderland to London titled March to Leave. Led By Donkeys set up a dedicated crowdfundraiser entitled "Let's take the truth to Farage's Brexit march". A YouTube videoclip of Farage not being happy with the ad van displaying his 2016 declaration "If Brexit is a disaster I'll go and live abroad" had been watched 2 million times within weeks. The Brexit Party did not publish a manifesto prior to the EU elections in May. Led By Donkeys decided to write it for them by putting their past statements and tweets on billboards across the UK, and keep a repository on the parody website. Later in 2019, after having received a threatening legal letter from the Brexit Party to cease and desist, citing EU law, the group offered them the web address for over a million pounds. 2019 state visit by Donald Trump US President Donald Trump has made pro-Brexit statements and praised Farage and Johnson. Prior to Trump's state visit to London in June 2019, Led By Donkeys designed a campaign to diminish the two leading Brexiteers through association with the president, who was considered unpopular in the UK. Led By Donkeys projected onto Big Ben a 2015 video of Johnson saying that Trump would be unfit for the presidency. Before they could get arrested, they moved to the Tower of London to project a comparison of Trump's UK approval rating of 21% and former president Barack Obama's of 72%. Finally they projected a red USS John S. McCain hat onto the dome of Madame Tussauds, trolling Trump based on news reports that in Japan his aides had orchestrated events to avoid Trump seeing the ship's crew displaying the name of his adversary. The group cancelled plans to project Trump's Access Hollywood tape onto Buckingham Palace during his state dinner with the Queen at the eleventh hour. On their social media account the group posted videos of their stunts. Johnson's Big Ben video was viewed two million times; the three videos together amassed 12 million views on Twitter. Johnson cancelled a previously arranged meeting with Trump. Get ready for Brexit Following the government's multimillion-pound Get ready for Brexit advertising campaign in August 2019, with a no-deal Brexit a possibility as the October 31 deadline approached, Led By Donkeys crowdfunded money for a spoof campaign. The group felt the government was overlooking the negative effects of a no-deal Brexit and the ad campaign was poorly designed. They put up billboards in the style of the official campaign but featuring conclusions from the government's own analysis, for example "Get ready for 'possible increased risk of serious organised crime. They subsequently ran a competition for members of the public to see who could best satirise the government's ad campaign. The five winning entries were displayed on billboards across the country. A crowd flag with the message "Get ready for a People's Vote" in the visual design of the government's own campaign was unfolded on Parliament Square during the Let Us Be Heard march in October 2019. General Election Leading up to the general election on 12 December 2019 Led By Donkeys continued their main anti-Brexit campaign. In addition to using billboards, ad vans, and projections, they staged various real-world acts, filmed them and spread them on social media. In the final week before the election they crowdfunded over £250,000 within 24 hours to run anti-Johnson ads on Facebook, making them one of the largest spenders on political ads. Three ads were each viewed more than one million times. The group organised the carving of a giant message on a Devon beach, with six doctors and nurses writing "You can't trust Boris Johnson with our NHS". GPS technology was used to draw the outlines of the letters and Johnson. The NHS staff filled them in. A similar technique was used when teachers wrote a giant anti-Johnson message in a field in the Peak District. The Led By Donkeys efforts did not achieve their goal. The pro-Brexit parties won the majority of seats, although the parties that campaigned for at least a second referendum received the majority of votes. Brexit Day The UK left the EU on 31 January 2020. Led By Donkeys projected a video message to the EU onto the White Cliffs of Dover. It featured Second World War veterans expressing sadness about leaving the EU, and hope that one day Britain would be together with Europe again. The video of the projection was seen a million times on Brexit Day. Guy Verhofstadt, Brexit coordinator for the European Parliament, responded with "We'll look after your star". The group projected onto Big Ben a compilation of controversial clips of Johnson and Farage, punctuated by fake Big Ben bongs. Coronavirus In April 2020, Led By Donkeys projected footage of NHS workers on to the Palace of Westminster. By then 55 NHS staff had died from COVID-19, and prime minister Johnson had just been taken out of intensive care following his own fight with the disease. In the video NHS workers asked Johnson to address the shortages in personal protective equipment in the NHS. In May 2020, the group drove an advertising van in front of the house of Johnson's senior advisor Dominic Cummings, as the press was gathered there during the controversy concerning his apparent breaking of lockdown rules. Johnson's "Stay at Home" message was played on the van's videoscreen. The activists ran a billboard campaign parodying the government's public health messaging, changing the official "Stay alert, control the virus, save lives" into "Stay alert, government incompetence costs lives". In July the group beamed a 10-minute video onto Barnard Castle showing a timeline of the government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. On social media this was viewed over 2 million times. in London When the US passed 200,000 COVID-19 deaths a timeline of the number of deaths was projected onto Trump's Turnberry golf course in Scotland, alongside the number of times the president had played golf since the start of the pandemic. The audio is of Trump from before being elected president in 2016, saying he would never play golf if he were president. In November 2020 Led By Donkeys worked with the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group to project a message from bereaved families onto the Houses of Parliament. The video urged prime minister Johnson to keep his promise to speak to the families who lost loved-ones during the pandemic. They later worked with the bereaved families on the National Covid Memorial Wall, with over 150,000 hearts painted on a wall in Westminster. Dressed as construction workers and looking official, they had already painted the wall and drawn a thousand hearts by the time authorities realised what was happening. When in June 2021 coronavirus restrictions were not lifted, the group published a timeline video in which they argued that the government reacted slow to the new Delta variant because of post-Brexit political manoeuvring. In August 2021 the group worked with the Good Law Project to produce a video asking questions about the government's procurement conduct during the pandemic, amplifying the accusations of corruption and lack of transparency. They beamed the video up onto the walls of Westminster Parliament. Partygate When the Metropolitan Police declined to investigate whether any rule-breaking parties were held at 10 Downing Street during the 2020 Christmas period lockdown, Led By Donkeys drove a video screen to the Scotland Yard offices. A Line of Duty parody video was played urging the police to change their mind and start an investigation. A few weeks later a second Line of Duty parody with Johnson being questioned by officers was viewed over 5 million times on social media, and shown on morning television shows. A third spoof, viewed 1.5 million times within 24 hours, involved Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick being asked by lead investigator Ted Hastings "Who exactly does the Metropolitan Police work for, ma’am?" After the Met had concluded its investigation, and fined over 100 people for breaking the rules, including Johnson, Led By Donkeys projected a six-minute video onto the Houses of Parliament, showing a timeline of parties and rules. The Independent called it "spectacular". They subsequently created a website called followtherules.co.uk showing the 100 times Johnson urged the British public to follow the COVID-19 rules. Miscellaneous In December 2020 the group made its dossier on Johnson's statements regarding Brexit available on a website called johnsondossier.com. It contains transcripts of speeches, interviews and newspaper columns Johnson wrote since February 2016. The group's aim is to allow the public, journalists, and others to hold Johnson to account. In July 2021 Led By Donkeys put up billboards displaying the UK brands that advertised on the new TV show Farage, broadcast on GB News, saying "These companies pay for Nigel Farage to attack RNLI lifeboat crews on his TV show." The following week one of the companies, supermarket chain Sainsbury's, announced it had ended their advertising on GB News. Following the UK Government's indecision to include London-based Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich in their sanctions package against Russia in February 2022, Led By Donkeys placed a blue plaque on the gate of his house. In a viral video it shows the plaque reads: "Billionaire Putin crony Roman Abramovich 1966~ lives here. It's worth £150m but the government won't seize it." The following week the activists put out another Line of Duty spoof video, showing prime minister Johnson being interviewed about the Conservative Party's links to Russian oligarchs. During the 2022 summer holidays delays at the port of Dover, Led By Donkeys played a video on a truck in the miles long queue, showing quotes from the past by various Brexiteers about there being no danger of delays at Dover. The video was popular on social media. After the downturn in the financial markets following the announced economic plans by Prime Minister Liz Truss in September 2022, Led By Donkeys placed an oversized blue plaque at 55 Tufton Street, reading "The UK was crashed here". In their video on social media they argued that the thinktanks located here were behind the failed policies. On 23 February 2023, Led By Donkeys spilled approximately 340 litres of blue and yellow paint on separate directions of the road outside the Russian embassy in London, re-creating the Ukrainian flag in protest against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In 2023, the group ran a campaign duping politicians into taking a job for a fake South Korean company. Two leading Conservative politicians, Kwasi Kwarteng and Matt Hancock, were caught on camera agreeing to work for £10,000. The chairman of the 1922 Committee, Graham Brady, also agreed to take a position as an advocate for £6,000 a day. In June 2024, the group disrupted an event where Nigel Farage was campaigning for the 2024 general election by slowly unfurling an electric banner behind him featuring an image of Vladimir Putin with the caption "I ♡ Nigel." They similarly disrupted another event in August at which former prime minister Liz Truss was speaking at Beccles Public Hall in Suffolk by unfurling a banner behind her with a picture of a lettuce and the caption "I crashed the economy"; Truss walked out when she realised. Speaking of this prank, Stewart, who was arrested following this event, stated that Led By Donkeys was an "accountability project" which was also "not starry-eyed about Labour", and that Labour, which was now in government, was "fair game". In September 2025, for a President Trump state visit, LBD rented a hotel room across from Windsor Castle and projected a video of Trump and former friend and convicted paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein, on the exterior. Four people were taken into custody and the event gained international attention. == Impact ==

By early 2020, the Led By Donkeys messages had been seen hundreds of millions of times on social media and attracted mainstream media exposure. Stewart said "there’s much still to fight for ... Our future relationship with Europe has not yet been defined." "We’re not shutting up shop just yet”. == Critical reception ==

Columnist Dawn Foster of The Guardian did not believe the billboards have changed anybody's opinion. Specifically regarding the Brexit Party manifesto billboards, she believed them to be counterproductive and that they actually helped spread the beliefs. One billboard, featuring Ann Widdecombe's quote "homosexual acts are wrongful" with the headline "Target gay people", was meant to warn voters of her homophobic beliefs. Foster called it fundamentally flawed, saying that to most it would seem like an anti-gay campaign, and that the group had overlooked the fact that most people would not see it as a warning. The quote in question was a response Johnson gave in 2018 to business concerns about a hard Brexit: he responded with a simple "Fuck business". The Birmingham Mail reported the following day that the local community had reacted with fury as the billboard was near a school. However, one local interviewed said "In an ideal world the billboard wouldn't be there, but in an ideal world our foreign secretary wouldn't be the type of person who thinks 'f***k business' is an acceptable response to people losing their jobs." Writing in the marketing industry magazine Campaign, Angus Macadam thought the creative content was "quite brilliant in its meditative simplicity" and added "these messages hinge on and are driven by the one thing we currently miss most in politics: inarguable truth". In the same magazine Eliza Williams called the group's campaign "witty" and "subversive". Advertising expert Ian Henderson said brands should draw inspiration from Led By Donkeys if they want their out-of-home advertising to leave a digital footprint. Journalist Raymond Snoddy, a former BBC News 24 presenter, wrote that the activists have exposed the UK media's failures to hold the government to account: "By concentrating on the here and now, the ever breaking news, the media has been swept along without pausing enough to think enough about the enormity of what has happened and how we've got there. ... The only certainty is that Led By Donkeys can be relied upon to rise to the occasion on both Boris Johnson and Brexit." The group and its campaigns are the focus of a book by Philip Seargeant which explores tactics of political activism in the linguistic landscape. ==See also==