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".
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.
[7][8] 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);[9] "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);[10] "There will be no downside to Brexit, only a considerable upside" (David Davis, October 2016);[11] "Getting out of the EU can be quick and easy – the UK holds most of the cards in any negotiation" (John Redwood, July 2016).
But when people from crowdfunder.co.uk contacted them, they learned that they could stay anonymous, and video footage of the Dover billboards being removed within a day made the group change their mind.
[30][18][16][31][32][19][33] When political website Guido Fawkes claimed on social media that Led By Donkeys was breaching election laws by overspending,[A] the activists realised that it would not be long before their names would be revealed.
[46] When the EU was considering giving the UK an extension to the original Brexit deadline of 29 March 2019, Led By Donkeys used a giant projector to display a video on the White Cliffs of Dover.
In March of that year, Gove had written in a Daily Mail article that there is no mandate for a no-deal Brexit: "We didn't vote to leave without a deal".
[44] 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".
[56][42] 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.
[60] 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.
[62] 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.
[68] 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.
They put up billboards in the style of the official campaign but featuring conclusions from the governments own analysis, for example "Get ready for 'possible increased risk of serious organised crime'".
[73] 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.
[80] 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".
[90][91] 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.
[102] 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.
[103] 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.
[107][108] 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.
[109] 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.
[119] Following the UK Government's indecision to include London-based Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich in their sanctions package for Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Led By Donkeys placed a blue plaque on the gate of his house.
"[120] 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.
[122] 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".
[5] The group's spokesman Stewart said he did not think their efforts had been in vain, despite the UK having left the EU on 31 January 2020: "we didn't set out to try and stop Brexit.
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.
[41] Led By Donkeys pulled the billboard within 24 hours after a social media backlash, acknowledged their mistake, and apologised for any unintentional pain caused to the gay community.
[137] In January 2019 Led By Donkeys illegally put up a quote by Boris Johnson near the Jaguar Land Rover factory in Solihull, a place affected by recent job losses.
"[138] 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".
"[97] Journalist Ian Burrell wrote in February 2022, after the Line of Duty parody videos appeared on the morning TV shows, that the group's wide reach stems from their creative ideas.
He praised the "slick production" of the videos, including the commissioning of authors and journalists such as former BBC Newsnight presenter Gavin Esler, to collaborate on projects.