A Boris Johnson clown in the style of the horror film It is among the images that will grace billboards going up around the country this weekend after a competition to redesign the government’s “Get Ready for Brexit” campaign.
The image is among five winning entries picked by the writer-director Armando Iannucci and the actor and comedian David Schneider, following the competition run by the pro-remain group Led By Donkeys, which described it as a push to give the public more accurate information.
Donald Trump, who was also a strong theme among more than 3,000 entries to the competition, also features in one of the winners.
In a nod to fears that the future of the NHS would be on the table in any post-Brexit US-UK trade deal, the billboard shows Trump gobbling up the health service’s logo.
The first wave of billboards are to go up in Neath, Coventry, Havant, Salisbury and Weymouth.
The other three winners include one featuring Nigel Farage holding up an “I am ready” slogan at a Brexit party rally, alongside billboard lettering stating: “My kids have their EU passports.”
Michael Gove, who was criticised for claiming during the referendum on EU membership that Britons have “had enough of experts” is pictured in another winning entry with the wording “People have had enough of exports.”
Johnson also makes an appearance in the fifth winner, which pictures him as he was about to knock over a 10-year-old child while playing touch rugby in Japan in 2015. “Get ready to tackle kids in the biscuit aisle,” the poster states.
The prime minister has already been accused of misleading the public with the government’s Get Ready campaign, which went live at the beginning of September. MPs and experts urged the civil service chief, Sir Mark Sedwill, to intervene to make clear the UK was highly unlikely to leave without a deal.
As part of their satirical assault on the £100m advertising campaign, Led By Donkeys launched a mock-up of a government website and an online tool that lets users design their own “get ready” poster.