Billboards shine light on bogus Brexit claims

A BILLBOARD campaign highlighting comments made by prominent Brexit backers has been turning a lot of heads recently.

Last month, a huge poster targeting businessman and Leave campaigner James Dyson turned up in Newcastle city centre .

A week later, there was another at Port of Tyne – just one of hundreds which has popped up around the country.

Both were the work of cloak and dagger anti-brexit campaign group “Led By Donkeys”.

It turns out one of the people behind the secretive campaign is from the North East and he’s revealed how his Leavevoting family and friends inspired him. The activist did not want to be named but is in his 40s and moved away from the region in his early 20s for work.

He said: “Brexit will have a massive impact on the North East either way, but especially if there’s a no deal.

“I’ve got a lot of family and friends there, some of whom voted to leave, and it makes me angry that they were lied to.

“Everything this campaign does is about accountability because people were sold lies.”

The Led By Donkeys group was set up by four friends after a discussion in the pub around New Year.

They started by erecting David Cameron’s now legendary May 2015 Tweet in which he promised “stability and strong Government with me, or chaos with Ed Miliband” – on a billboard.

After putting eight up in the dead of night without permission, they set up a crowdfunding page – which raised more than £50,000 – and are now legitimately paying for adverts across the country.

The North East voted overwhelmingly to leave the European Union.

Of the seven local authority areas, only Newcastle came out for Remain and that was by just 0.7%.

Asked if he thought the campaign would alienate Leave voters who still want to get out of the EU, he said: “If there was a second referendum I would vote to stay but I’m sick of everyone being divided into Remainers and Leavers. We’re not Remainers and Leavers – we’re Brits.” He added: “I understand why people voted to leave, I’ve got family and friends who did.

“Our region has been let down for generations, from Thatchers closing the mines to Labour.

“People wanted a change – but it wasn’t the EU that put the country through austerity.

“Getting that message across to people was lacking from the Remain campaign in the first place.”