Just ahead of Theresa May’s ‘significant’ EU meeting in Brussels, a giant billboard in the center of the city showed an anti-Brexit statement May made in 2016, styled to look like one of her tweets.
Onlookers stood agog as they read the massive digital billboard over De Brouckère Square in Belgium’s busy city center. While the featured tweet is a fake, it was made using Theresa May’s own words from a speech she gave in 2016 while serving as Home Secretary.
The tweet reads: “I believe it is clearly in our national interest to remain a member of the European Union,” and appears as though it was published on the Prime Minister’s personal Twitter account. The billboard rotates through several displays, the tweet appearing for a full 10 seconds of every minute.
The activist group responsible for the instillation, “Led by Donkeys,” had both impeccable timing and placement: the billboard went up just hours before May’s meeting in the European Commission’s Berlaymont building which is only a couple miles away. While it is unclear if May herself has seen the mocking mural, its scale and location would make it hard to miss.
Her meeting with European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker is meant to tackle critical details about the Irish border backstop, with just over a month to go before the UK’s official leaving date.
Reactions to the campaign across social media have been enthusiastic, many praising the group for pulling off the stunt with the Prime Minister herself inbound.
While “Led by Donkeys” has already gained notoriety for putting up several similar billboards in recent months, featuring anti-Brexit tweets from its current political proponents, Wednesdays display is their most outstanding to date.
Although the group started by pasting the quotes up themselves, they are now using crowdfunding to actually purchase the ad-space, Their Crowdfunder page describes their mission to expose the “forgotten lies” of politicians which resulted in the “chaos” of Brexit.
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