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Raise the Colours: Council bills man £2.3k for flag removals

The past few months have seen flags going up all over the UK. These flags did not raise themselves, however, and they’re not removing themselves either. The consequence of the Raise the Colours campaign is that some councils are charging the people who erected them:

Raise the Colours—The flagpole tax

The man in question was Scarborough businessman William Haylett. Haylett erected 64 flags, telling GB News he did it to ‘bring the community together’. While Haylett may be sincere, it’s also the case that the flag-raising operation in the UK has been spearheaded by people who want division.

As Hope not Hate reported:

the co-founder and organiser of the group is longtime Stephen Lennon (AKA Tommy Robinson) ally Andrew Currien (AKA Andy Saxon). Formerly a key member of the English Defence League’s leadership bodyguard team, and now running security for the far-right party Britain First, Currien has previously been jailed for his part in a racist death. He was one of six men convicted in 2009 after a 59-year-old man was crushed to death by a car following a violent brawl.

The so-called Operation Raise the Colours also included Ryan Bridge, who is linked to a £40m fraud scandal:


Most recently, Bridge was seen being chased out of a refugee camp:

Fair play to them for filming their embarrassment, at least; personally we would have avoided broadcasting our shame to the world.

Reportedly, Raise the Colours may now be trying to distance themselves from Bridge:

Back to the story at hand, Scarborough council told Haylett:

On October 30/31, we removed 64 flags in the Scarborough area, believed to be your property and that you may wish us to return them.

I attach a notice imposing an Obligation to Collect Goods which states that the council will only be prepared to return your flags on the basis that you reimburse the council with the costs of removal.

On the basis that the flags were yours, this equates to £36.27 per flag plus VAT.

To be clear, whether you wish to retrieve your flags or not, the council is seeking to pursue the total costs of their removal. An invoice will be sent to you under separate cover.

They also asked Haylett to stop putting flags up.

Haylett himself said:

All over the country, everyone is down and depressed – putting flags up was to pick ourselves back up and to get spring back in our step.

Actual action

Personally, we think it’s going to take a lot more than flags to get this country back on track.

With that in mind, we’d like to suggest the following measures:

Unless we sort the above out, Britain is nothing more than a piggy bank for the rich, and that will be true even if you deck the country out in flags from Land’s End to John o’ Groats.

Featured image via Scarborough Council

By Willem Moore

This post was originally published on Canary.