The Lib Dems have invoked wartime imagery in a “grim” and “cynical” new election poster just weeks before Remembrance Sunday.
The campaign parodies the famous World War II poster warning that “Careless Talk Costs Lives”.
But in the updated version from the Lib Dems, it warns that “Careless Votes Cost Lives” and shows Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson apparently conspiring on Brexit over a cosy dinner.
Underneath the image is written, “…thanks for your help comrade, we finally got Brexit over the line!”
The poster will be plastered on billboards, as well as taking up full-page
adverts in newspapers and roaming digital ad-vans in the party’s target seats.
Southwark Labour MP Neil Coyle said the poster was “grim.”
He added: “Most of us will shortly be commemorating lives lost by our Forces and communities back here on Remembrance Sunday.
“For the Lib Dems who admit contributing to the reasons many people voted leave in 2016 to use wartime materials in this way demonstrates their contempt for people’s values.
“It’s a shocking poster showing the Lib Dems put deeply cynical political point scoring above respect and recognition for the wartime efforts at home and abroad.”
And Labour’s Manchester Central MP Lucy Powell said: “Apart from this poster not being that good, it’s also very crass.
“I don’t know if their intention was to suggest people will die because of Brexit, but it’s pretty tasteless.”
The Lib Dems have been intensifying their attacks on Labour over Brexit as a snap election grows more likely.
Yesterday party leader Jo Swinson slammed Jeremy Corbyn for failing to back the party’s Commons bid for a fresh Brexit referendum.
She said: “First 19 Labour MPs vote for Brexit and face no sanction, now Jeremy Corbyn refuses to back a People’s Vote in Parliament. Remainers are seeing whose side Jeremy Corbyn is on.”
John Leech, the Lib Dem leader of Manchester council, defended the poster – saying his party were “unapologetically pro-European” and willing to do “absolutely anything” to stop Brexit.
At the launch of the campaign in Manchester today, said: “On more than 30 occasions, Corbyn has ordered his MPs to vote with the Conservatives to deliver Brexit.
“Johnson’s deal is even worse than Theresa May ’s, and yet Labour MPs are still lining up to vote for it.
“There can be no coming back from that, and both MPs and voters must recognise the repercussions of their votes.”
