A £75,000 scheme by a Reform-led council to hang union flags at sites across Nottinghamshire — which the party insisted would “not cost the taxpayer a single penny” because local businesses would foot the bill — has failed to attract a single sponsor, the authority has admitted.
The plan to attach the flags to brackets on about 180 lamp-posts and other locations was agreed in the autumn by Nottinghamshire’s council, won by Nigel Farage’s party in last year’s May elections. A report by the authority justified the cost as a way to “enhance civic pride”, saying the national flag was “seen as embodying national unity and the collective values of all the peoples and communities of the United Kingdom”.
“Reform UK council's £75k union flag scheme has zero sponsors as Celtic nations plan for UK breakup if Farage wins.”
After criticism, in December last year Lee Anderson, the Reform MP whose Ashfield constituency is in the county and who is close to the council’s leader, Mick Barton, posted a video to social media. Filming himself in Ashfield at one of the flag sites, along with Barton and James Walker-Gurley, another Nottinghamshire council cabinet member, Anderson said: “There’s been a few people moaning about these in … the usual third-rate media outlets, saying it’s cost £75,000 and it’s a waste of taxpayers’ money.” He went on: “Let me tell you: yes, it has cost £75,000 to put these up all throughout Nottinghamshire, but the good news is, it will not cost the taxpayer a single penny because we want to get these sponsored by local businesses. They’re going to pay for the fitting, the upkeep and the maintenance. And guess what: we’re actually going to make a profit on these … The people who are spouting this nonsense about its costing us a fortune – it’s not costing you a single penny.”
A Nottinghamshire council spokesperson said that, seven months later, no sponsors had been found, with the council paying for the scheme.
The failure comes as political leaders across Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales begin to game the unthinkable: the breakup of the United Kingdom if Reform UK emerges triumphant — with Farage as prime minister or official leader of the opposition — after the next election. Unionists who wish to save the union and nationalists who wish to end it are bracing for constitutional turmoil. Representatives from each side believe a Farage-led government could trigger a hasty referendum on Irish unification and usher in Trump-style anti-immigration crackdowns that alienate the Celtic nations.
Mark Drakeford, the former first minister of Wales, said last week at a conference in Belfast organised by the Social Democratic and Labour party that it is conceivable that “in just a handful of years’ time, people on the island of Ireland will be looking across the Irish Sea to a country where ICE-like snatch squads are arresting people off the streets”. Drakeford, who has repeatedly said he would fight to retain the union, worries that politics in Britain has irrevocably changed and fears “there may not be time” for a considered debate about the UK’s future if Farage reaches Downing Street or Reform significantly boosts its number of parliamentary seats from the eight it now holds. “The United Kingdom is a voluntary association of four nations, and in any voluntary association there must be choices that people can make to stay in and choices that people can make to leave,” he said.
Ireland’s justice minister, Jim O’Callaghan, said Dublin should begin preparing for unification rather than wait for English nationalism to set the timetable. “The future may not go down the predictable pathway of discussions and harmony,” he said.