UK Flag Campaign Founder Hit With 14 Charges
UK Flag Campaign Founder Hit With 14 Charges
The News
Ryan Bridge, the 45-year-old founder of the British flag campaign Raise the Colours, was charged Sunday with 14 offences including racially aggravated harassment, threatening behaviour and common assault.
Thames Valley Police said the charges stem from reported incidents in Oxfordshire between Jan. 31 and March 31, 2026.
Bridge, of Blackwell, Bromsgrove, in Worcestershire, has spent the past year putting Union Jack and St George's Cross flags on lampposts across the Midlands and southern England. He was on stage territory at Reform UK's annual conference days before the charges landed.
The Charges
Seven counts of using threatening words or behaviour to cause harassment, alarm or distress.
Three counts of using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to cause fear of, or to provoke, unlawful violence.
Two counts of racially aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress, and one count of racially aggravated fear of violence.
One count of common assault.
Timeline
Bridge begins erecting Union Jack and St George's Cross flags in the Midlands and the south of England under the Raise the Colours banner. The group goes on to put up hundreds of flags across England.
The period covered by the reported incidents in Oxfordshire that Thames Valley Police say produced the 14 charges.
Oxfordshire County Council is granted a High Court injunction barring people from placing flags near highways, citing safety concerns, trespass and obstruction.
Bridge attends Reform UK's annual conference, where party leader Nigel Farage praises the flag campaign from the stage.
Thames Valley Police charge Bridge with 14 offences.
Reactions
Farage paid tribute to the flag campaign and to Bridge personally at the Reform UK conference, telling him from the stage: "If we can help you legally, we will."
Councils have taken the opposite view of the campaign. Oxfordshire County Council went to the High Court over the flags on safety, trespass and obstruction grounds, and Birmingham City Council has applied for an injunction of its own.
British coverage agrees on the charge sheet but splits on emphasis — some outlets lead on the criminal counts, others foreground Farage's offer of legal support.
What's Next
Bridge is due to appear at Oxford Magistrates' Court on Nov. 3.
Birmingham City Council's injunction application is set to be heard at the High Court on Tuesday.
It is not yet clear whether Farage or Reform UK will follow through with legal assistance, or in what form.
More
The charges are allegations. Bridge has not entered a plea, and none of the counts have been tested in court.
Beyond the flags, Bridge has travelled to northern France to film small boats crossing the English Channel, in what The Independent described as an apparent attempt to stop the crossings.
Poll
Should putting up national flags on public lampposts be treated as a crime?
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