Gay Star News has shut its doors, making twenty people redundant and not paying them for a whole month of work. Aside from journalism, the company had also been running the official not-so-successful LGBT+ for a People’s Vote campaign. What are they blaming for their demise? “The uncertainty over Brexit” of course!

“The biggest change was the level of confidence brands and businesses in the UK have, due to the uncertainty over Brexit. It won’t surprise anyone to hear that many media organisations are struggling with the same problem.”

This claim doesn’t quite ring true when their rival PinkNews has tripled its revenue over the last twelve months. Perhaps Gay Star News’ investors were some of the few people who actually believed their Second Referendum campaign’s scare stories talking down the UK post-Brexit. Or more likely, it was just shoddy business practice…

A source familiar with the company told Guido:

“they over-hired constantly and didn’t know what they were doing… how can Brexit be the fault when they made a loss before there was a referendum? It wasn’t Brexit, it was their business plan.”

Another source in the industry told Guido that the business failed because “they ploughed hundreds of thousands of pounds into buying Facebook likes, and then Facebook changed the algorithm.” Not a good look to blame your own failings on Brexit, not that it stops many failing companies from trying…