A Liberal Democrat council has banned a group from putting up England flags, accusing it of using them to ‘intimidate’ people.
Oxfordshire County Council slapped Raise the Colours with a formal legal notice that forbids them from hoisting the St George’s cross in the county.
Liz Leffman, leader of the council, said the group’s flag campaign was not patriotism but ‘an act of intimidation and division’.
She said they had been making residents feel ‘distressed, unwelcome and unsafe in their own neighbourhoods’.
A team from the council has set about removing the flags, and Ms Leffman reported they had been met with ‘abuse and threatening behaviour’ from those who put them up.
She added that the council would not hesitate to take more robust legal measures if necessary.
Raise the Colours is an online campaign bidding to ‘cover Britain in flags’, namely the Union Flag and St George’s Cross in public places.
Critics have associated it with the far-right movement, and many local authorities have taken to removing the flags as they are put up – with councils reportedly having paid contractors more than £100,000 to do so.
Its defenders, however, insist the campaign is simply motivated by patriotism, and often cite other campaign groups being permitted to put up flags of foreign countries.
Richard Tice, Reform UK’s deputy leader, said Oxfordshire County Council’s move shows the Lib Dems are ‘unpatriotic woke numpties’.
He told The Telegraph: ‘This is why they are making no progress in the polls as Reform soar in the lead. Flags and patriotism matters.’
Conservative shadow minister Greg Smith said: ‘Proof, if ever we needed it, that the Lib Dems are a deeply unpatriotic party.
‘We should always fly our flags with pride and in the full knowledge of the British values they actually represent.’
Flying English, Scottish and Union flags was identified as a ‘tool of hate’ in a recently leaked draft of the Government’s new social cohesion strategy.
The document found the flags had been used to ‘exclude or intimidate’, particularly during last summer.
It warned that the ‘extreme right has tried to turn symbols of pride into tools of hate’.
