London council takes down Progress Pride flag after threat of legal motion

Local authorities needs to be held to account in the event that they fly the contentious Progress Pride flag without planning permission, a Christian candidate has said after successfully difficult a London council. 

Maureen Martin, the Christian Peoples’ Alliance candidate for Lewisham East, threatened to hunt a High Court injunction if the council did not remove the flag, which was flown from the roof of the town hall during an election. 

The Progress Pride flag differs from the standard Pride flag with its addition of black and brown stripes to represent marginalised LGBTQ+ people of color, and pink, blue, and white stripes from the transgender flag.

Unlike the normal rainbow Pride flag, the Progress Pride flag requires special permission to be flown outside a constructing since it is treated as promoting. 

In a letter to the council via her lawyers, Miss Martin said: “You will appreciate that the world of transgender rights is a highly contentious political issue within the United Kingdom.

“You will even remember that the Equality Act 2010 doesn’t protect gender as a protected characteristic.”

The council agreed to take down the flag “to avoid any concern”. 

Responding to the consequence, Miss Martin said: “This yr, especially in June, we were seeing councils and businesses displaying the Progress Pride flag, unlawfully and sometimes without permission or proper consultation.

“The transgender ideology behind this flag has been proven to be harmful to a whole bunch of vulnerable children.

“It is unacceptable that Lewisham Council and other councils across the country have and are making such an extreme public and ideological statement on such contested issues, even during elections.

“Greater awareness have to be urgently raised about what these flags stand for, and public authorities flying them have to be delivered to account.”

Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, which supported Miss Martin, said: “These flags should not be dominating our town centres and neighbourhoods. They are intimidating and exclusionary towards Christians and others who don’t think in Pride.”