Outrage as councils spend £100k of your money taking down St George’s and Union Jack flags
Local authorities have been accused of “squandering tens of thousands of pounds” of taxpayer cash on “erasing British identity”.
Operation Raise the Colours saw England flags appear across the country last year (Image: Getty)
UK councils have been told to “hang their heads in shame” after it emerged that over £100,000 of taxpayer’s money had been spent on taking down down Union and St George’s flags. The national symbols appeared across the country last summer as part of Operation Raise the Colours, lauded by some as an expression of patriotism and criticised by others as evidence of racism and xenophobia. Some local authorities suggested the installations posed safety risks and sparked backlash by hiring contractors to remove them from public infrastructure including lampposts.
The cost of the endeavour across 47 councils has now been exposed as totalling £115,115.35, however, putting Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat bodies under fire for “wasting tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money”. Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform UK, said: “The English and Union flags are proud, unifying symbols of our nation. Labour, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems should hang their heads in shame for squandering public cash to erase British identity.”
Councils spent up to £110 to remove a single flag (Image: Getty)
He told The Telegraph: “Tory, Labour and Lib Dem councils are ripping [flags] down and wasting tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money to do it. It’s nothing short of a disgrace.”
Conservative councils spent the highest amount on flag removals, taking £43,359.96 from the public coffers, while Labour-led authorities spent around £35,000 and Lib Dem councillors spent just under £25,000.
Tory-led Bromley Council paid contractor Festive Lighting almost £14,000 to remove flags around the southeast London borough over a three-day period as well as handing £13,500 to 12 people for stripping just two roundabouts of the national symbols in one night.
Lib Dem-run Oxfordshire County Council similarly spent over £15,000 removing 330 flags from its lampposts, amounting to an average of £45 per flag, reports suggest.
Among the other worst offenders were Lib Dem-led Shropshire Council, which paid a contractor £1,760 for flag removals that amounted to around £80 per flag and the party’s minority Rutland authority, which paid a firm £110 to remove a single flag.
John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Councils crying poverty while splurging thousands to take down the Union Jack is an insult to taxpayers and to basic common sense.”
St George and Union Jack flags began appearing across the country following the outbreak of protests outside asylum seeker hotels early last summer.
While those responsible for the movement insisted it was born from an innocent love of the country, others argued that the trend was provocative and incendiary at a time when tensions over immigration were already sky-high.
