New billboard featuring Freddie Mercury celebrates migrant influence in the UK

A new billboard featuring Freddie Mercury has been unveiled in Liverpool, marked with the caption: ​“Thank God for Immigrants.”

Created by art and activism collective Everyone Hates Elon, the billboard is inspired by the work of Jeremy Deller, who in recent years has created a series expressing solidarity with migrants using the same phrase, as well as a billboard featuring George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley of Wham!.

According to the group, Deller gave the collective his support in creating the Freddie Mercury piece. Everyone Hates Elon announced the action on Instagram yesterday, with a post that read: ​“Freddie Mercury came to the UK as a kid because people that looked like him were being killed back home in Zanzibar.”

It continued: ​“But he didn’t become British by getting famous. He became British by building a life here. Just as a factory worker, a doctor, or anybody else does.”

The campaign comes at a time when anti-migrant sentiment has been on the rise in the UK. In September, far-right activist Tommy Robinson’s ​“Unite the Kingdom” march saw over 100,000 people turn out, with footage appearing to show a handful of attendees singing along to Queen’s 1977 classic ​‘We Are the Champions’.

• Read next: Two founders of Led By Donkeys to face trial after Labour HQ protest

Meanwhile, Nigel Farage’s party Reform UK is currently polling in first place, having campaigned with a plan to deport 600,000 migrants if it won power at the next election.

A spokesperson for Everyone Hates Elon told Huck: ​“Most of us don’t realise how immigration has shaped our lives – whether someone scored a goal for your team or saved your life at the hospital. It doesn’t matter if you’re a singer or a scaffolder – all kinds of people have built this country and made Britain what it is today.

• Read next: JA Mortram’s harsh, bleak portrait of life on the UK’s fringes

“People across the country worship icons like the ones on our billboards, yet we are expected to blame immigrants for our problems. It’s a disgusting distraction tactic by the rich and powerful,” they continued.

“Let’s refuse to believe the lies spread by the likes of the world’s richest man Elon Musk or the tax avoiding owner of the Daily Mail, Lord Rothermere, and save our anger for those truly responsible for disappearing GP appointments and rip off bills: billionaires and their politician friends.”

Previous actions by Everyone Hates Elon have seen the crew unfurl a huge banner featuring a photograph of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein together at Windsor Castle during the former’s recent visit to the UK, as well as destroying a Tesla to protest against Elon Musk and wealth inequality.

Isaac Muk is Huck’s digital editor. Follow him on Bluesky.

Buy your copy of Huck 82 here.

Enjoyed this article? Follow Huck on Instagram and sign up to our newsletter for more from the cutting edge of sport, music and counterculture.

Support stories like this by becoming a member of Club Huck.