‘Not a culture war’: the council that won its case over England flags on lampposts

While Londoners scurried from building to building seeking shade on another baking hot day this week, one man paused in the shadow of the Royal Courts of Justice. The leader of Oxfordshire county council, Tim Bearder, was not only satisfied in the shade of the court’s gothic towers. He had just won a landmark legal victory. On the face of it, the case was an argument about local council permissions. But such is the febrile nature of British politics, the proceedings took on a whole new importance – one which strikes to the heart of raging debate in England over its most recognisable icon: the national flag. The court, one of the most important in England and Wales, had decided that hanging the English flag from lampposts without the council’s permission should not be allowed. Activists who have been hanging the flag of St George along roadsides in what has been a growing display of nationalist sentiment, were dismayed, accusing politicians such Bearder of “not liking the flag of their country”. Bearder, a public servant and proud Englishman, was delighted. “We’ve secured the first ever injunction [of its kind] in the country and this will serve as a blueprint for other councils wishing to stop this irresponsible behaviour,” he said. Tensions have been growing between the Raise the Colours group and the council since the former began its “nationwide campaign to cover Britain in flags” last summer. …