Campaign group Led By Donkeys offers to sell thebrexitparty.com to Nigel Farage – for £1m

Stunt ‘designed to highlight lunacy and hypocrisy’ of Conservative alliance with upstart faction

The anti-Brexit group taunted their opponent by titling the page, 'Is this your website, Mr Farage?' (Led By Donkeys)

An anti-Brexit campaign group has bought the website “thebrexitparty.com” and is offering to sell it to Nigel Farage for over a million pounds.

Led By Donkeys said the entire fee, which will increase by £50,000 each day, would be donated to the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants.

The move comes after Brexit Party lawyers contacted Led By Donkeys asking them to remove their logo from the site. The party said the campaign group is refusing to transfer the domain name, which is similar to their official site “thebrexitparty.org”.

The website features a rising total of the cost, along with an “election advent calendar” – which offers examples of the “lies, lunacy and hypocrisy” of the Conservatives and Brexit Party every day until 12 December.

“When Farage and his millionaire backers set up the Brexit Party they didn’t have the foresight to buy up all of the websites with their own name, and we did,” Led By Donkeys co-founder Oliver Knowles told the PA news agency.

“With the advent calendar we are telling the story of the Brexit Party and the Tory Party, who are now election partners, and the threat they represent to the country.”

Asked why they chose the immigrant support charity, Mr Knowles said: “Nigel Farage peddles an ideology of hatred and division and it felt like this would be a good and just cause.”

Led By Donkeys bought the domain name earlier this year to challenge Mr Farage’s party during the European Parliament elections in May.

The anti-Brexit group ridiculed the recent approach from Brexit Party lawyers, saying the eight-page legal letter cites European Union law five times as justification of its claim.

“Who knew Nigel Farage was such a fan of European law?” Led By Donkeys tweeted.

All versions of the Brexit Party logo have been removed from the current version of the website.

Behind the first door of the advent calendar features a video of Mr Farage saying “we’re going to have to move to an insurance-based system of healthcare”.

“There will be a series of other pieces of information about their collaboration and highlighting the lunacy and hypocrisy of their Brexit position over the past few months,” said Mr Knowles.

“Some are describing it as the most important election in a generation and we’re inclined to agree.”

In a statement, the Brexit Party said: “The Brexit Party have issued a legal letter, via lawyers Wedlake Bell, to Led by Donkeys requesting they cease and desist from using the Brexit Party logo and Brexit Party materials on posters, document download site and via their website at thebrexitparty.com.

“They have offered to comply with these requests, but so far they are refusing to transfer the domain name.”

Led By Donkeys has made its name protesting against Brexit with various large-scale projects in public spaces, first going viral in early 2019 by sharing politicians’ past comments on billboards.

Press Association