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People are making their own versions of the government’s ‘Get Ready’ campaign posters

Mia Jankowicz

The government's £100 million "Get ready" Brexit public information campaign has been seized on by Remainers. Picture: Chris Barker - Credit: Chris Barker

The government’s poster and online campaign telling people to ‘Get ready for Brexit’ has been hijacked on social media and Twitter users are certainly not using the #GetReady hashtag as intended.

The government’s £100 million “Get ready” campaign has begun to roll out nationwide with billboards and a new government website alerting the public and businesses to the issues they have to face as the Brexit deadline approaches.

MORE: Government to launch ‘get ready’ for Brexit campaign costing £100mBut with warnings about a no-deal Brexit coming from all sides – including health services, agriculture, the City, and manufacturing – that campaign has met with sarcasm online.

Designer and writer Richard Littler has designed several alternative posters using the distinctive navy and red lettering. His posters have replaced the word “Brexit” with “empty jingoism” and “disaster capitalist payouts”.

He also adapted a 1940s-style “Dig for Victory” poster to show the digger shooting himself in the foot.

Continuing the wartime theme, Twitter user “The Agitator” posted a Second World War public information film about ration books. Michael Gove, who worryingly told the public that “everyone will have the food they need” in a no-deal Brexit, has been edited into the clip as the presenter.

Chris Barker, who designs The New European’s iconic covers, made a stark authoritarian capitalist statement by plastering the billboard poster simply with the words: “Obey, consume.”

He also adapted the poster to say: “Look, can you stop making such a fuss, some of us stand to make an absolute fortune out of this.”

Another adaptation plays on the danger to health services and one of Boris Johnson’s policy proposals to increase the retirement age to 75: “Get ready to work till 75 with no NHS to help you.”

Designers have been making their own versions of the ‘Get Ready campaign posters’. Picture: Chris Barker – Credit: Chris Barker

Alternative designs have appeared, adapting the slogan such as one image which says: “Get ready for Brexit. Swiftly through the Dutch ports, followed by three days in a Kent lorry park.”

Pictures of empty supermarket shelves and burning vehicles have also accompanied the slogan.

The “Get ready” website, which allows users to fill in a survey to get to advice relevant to their business or personal circumstance, has also been pilloried.

“Get ready to rumble,” says one mocked-up webpage. “Answer a few questions to find out how you or your business should prepare. The advice is vague, will almost certainly cost you money and we should have told you about it months ago, but hey.”

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