The viral Broken Britain billboard returns as updated Unbreak Britain poster to offer hope for the future

A stunning one-off guerilla advertising billboard will be unveiled in London tomorrow called Unbreak Britain, a follow up to the Broken Britain billboard that went viral when it appeared in Liverpool in September last year, with images of it shared endlessly online and sparking nationwide debate.

The brainchild of award-winning creative director and writer Elliott Starr, this time, the poster is a rallying call for the nation to unite. Running on a huge 48-sheet billboard from 12-20 September in Whitechapel to coincide with the London Design Festival, the eye-catching giant poster this time shows slogans and words to form the shape of a Union Flag, adding to words shaping the flag of St George in its first incarnation and offering a hopeful cure for our country’s current malaise.

As the Unbreak Britain flag proclaims: “Britain will not be rebuilt on nostalgia or blaming strangers for systems broken before they arrived. We deserve better. Better than hiding behind flag-draped racism and xenophobia while atrocities happen. Pride in Britain doesn’t mean pride in everything done in its name. It means asking: what are we becoming? Being brave enough to suggest something better. Not with words, but with work we do, together.”

It’s the sequel to ‘The Broken Britain Billboard’, which pushed back against the wave of St George’s flags being hung from lampposts and sprayed on roundabouts, and the racism and xenophobia which inspired the movement.

The original billboard asked questions around who is to blame for the state of the nation in a cost of living crisis and a visible rise in far-right sentiment – not immigrants, but years of political mismanagement and deliberate misdirection. So now in 2026, the billboard is back, this time with a hopeful twist and suggestions how we can unify in troubled times.

Starr, founder and creative partner at Belief Studio, worked with David Johnston, CEO and executive creative director of London-based design studio Accept & Proceed and Indy Johar, co-founder of Dark Matter Labs, to create the Unbreak Britain Billboard, all giving their time for free.

Starr explained: “I’m no political expert, but I know the mood of the nation and it’s in a bad place. Life is hard for a lot of people. When life is hard, and those we trust to lead us point fingers, a lot of people listen, even when the facts don’t align. I wanted the Broken Britain Billboard to be a reality check. With this latest instalment, we want to offer a little more hope – a vision of a brighter future for us all that’s within our reach, if we’re willing to change.”

Johnston said: “The Union flag is increasingly being pulled towards division and exclusion. Unbreak Britain is an attempt to pull it back, to reclaim the flag as a symbol of something we share, and a country we all have a hand in repairing. It’s not simply about what the flag means, but what it might make possible.”

Johar added: “The poster site itself sits at the intersection of London’s immigrant history and its creative present. An area that has been Bengali, Bangladeshi, Jewish, Huguenot and more. We are hoping this billboard attracts the attention of everyone in the local community and across the country, as well as those attending the London Design Festival – an audience with the tools, platforms and professional abilities to shape how Britain sees itself now and in the future.”