Uknown: Birmingham Five Step up to Smash Council Flag Injunction

OK, let’s get straight to it. When Birmingham City Council comes with a grand, sweeping masterplan that means any one its 1.2 million residents could face seizures or up to 2 years in jail for attaching a flag to a lamppost without permission, you would expect them to come with meticulously prepared, razor sharp and absolutely bulletproof legal arguments. 

You would not expect the whole bid to depend on a gamble that not one of the city’s law abiding residents with no prior complaints against them would make their objections known to the court.

But now the council’s proposal is being challenged in the High Court by representatives of the ordinary people of Brum, and it is a sight to behold.

We have been approached by the spokesperson for a brilliant new group of filers, representing both the ordinary law abiding people of Birmingham in general and LGBTQ+ minorities in particular, and after being shown a copy of the very filing itself, can report that a legal ambush of spectacular proportions has just been dropped on the council's toes that threatens to call the council’s bluff and sink this attempt to leave any peace loving Brummie who dares to raise a flag without a permit facing draconian punishment.

For those who haven’t been following the council’s descent into legal madness, here is the setup.

The local authority recently decided to haul a group of individuals before the High Court for attaching Union Jacks and St George’s Crosses to street furniture as part of a campaign they say is associated with road blockages and safety concerns, with allegation of intimidation and harassment of anyone who stands in their way — including council workers tasked with removing the flags.

They named seven men in their legal hit-list: Ryan Bridge, Julian Keane, Elliot Stanley, Ross Childs, Billy Allison, Ben Cullen, and Mark Keating.

But, because local authorities possess a sort of terrifying, weapons-grade flag paranoia, they didn’t stop there.

To ensure absolutely nobody else could ever put up a flag in the city, they added an eighth, catch-all defendant to their injunction application: “Persons Unknown.” It was a giant, lazy dragnet designed to criminalise the entire population of Birmingham should they ever feel the sudden urge to express themselves.

And that is exactly where the council has walked face-first into a rake.

Stepping out of the legally ambiguous fog of “Persons Unknown” are five named, law-abiding Birmingham residents: Mark Hudson, Adam Biggs, Thomas Greenslade, Timothy Hodge, and Tony Kaye.

They have voluntarily unmasked themselves, submitted a devastatingly clever Position Statement to the Court, and essentially said to the council: "Hello. We are the unknowns. We are members of the LGBTQ+ community who occasionally put up Pride flags. And you are trying to make us criminals."

It is a tactical masterpiece. You see, the law on this is remarkably clear, but I won't bore you with endless sub-clauses.

In a recent Supreme Court showdown (Wolverhampton v Gypsies and Travellers), the men in wigs decided that injunctions against "Persons Unknown" are an extreme measure. An absolute last resort.

You simply cannot use them as a giant fishing net to catch ordinary, peaceful citizens.

Furthermore, the moment the council's dragnet threatens law-abiding people exercising their basic rights, it triggers a massive legal headache.

Under the Human Rights Act—specifically Freedom of Expression and Assembly—and the Public Sector Equality Duty enshrined in the Equality Act, the council is suddenly in the indefensible position of using the High Court to threaten peaceful minority expression with prison time.

Here is the sheer genius of this trap. If the council’s lawyers try to save their own blushes by telling the Judge, "Oh, we didn't mean you chaps with the Pride flags, you can be removed from the injunction," they instantly destroy their entire case against the original seven men.

Why? Because if the council admits that putting up a Pride flag isn't a public nuisance, but putting up a Union Jack or other flag associated with Raise The Colour group is, then this is no longer about highway safety.

It starts looking like targeted political discrimination. If the punishment for a flag of a foreign nation is less than that for a British flag, it looks as if they are purely going after one group of people whose flags certain residents personally dislike.

If they drop the "Persons Unknown" to avoid breaching equality laws, their entire city-wide injunction collapses into dust.

This now puts Birmingham City Council in a perfect Mortens Fork legal pincer movement and may leave the Judge with absolutely no choice but to throw the whole lot in the proverbial bin.

When a public body acts with such staggering disregard for basic logic, we enter the realm of administrative law’s greatest insult.

Yes, this could now even lean from a legal perspective to a Wednesbury unreasonableness scenario.

For those who don't spend their weekends reading administrative case law, that is a polite, judicial way of describing a decision so profoundly stupid that no reasonable authority could ever have made it.

And the fallout might not stop at the Birmingham borders. If this Judge looks at this filing and sends the council packing, it casts a very long, dark shadow over similar legal manoeuvres elsewhere.

Take the recent, highly controversial flag injunction granted over in Oxford. If Birmingham's dragnet is ruled unlawful because of this exact flaw, one has to wonder: could that Oxford ruling now become a fruit of the poisonous tree?

If a precedent is set here, the Oxford injunction looks wide open to a ferocious legal appeal.

Adam Biggs, one of the brilliant minds who stepped out of the shadows to file this challenge, was utterly resolute when he spoke to us.

Sounding less like a typical respondent and more like a deeply passionate, justice-sensitive politician, he laid out exactly why this fight matters:

"This filing is not just about flags; it is about the fundamental right of every Birmingham resident to live without the threat of a draconian, blanket injunction hanging over their heads. We have stepped forward because it is our civic duty to challenge gross overreach.

The council cannot use a sledgehammer of a High Court order to bypass standard democratic governance, criminalising ordinary citizens for peaceful expression. This is a fight for basic civil liberties in our city, and we are determined to see justice prevail."

Which brings us, finally, to the catastrophic implications for Birmingham City Council itself. Let us not forget, this is an organisation that is completely and utterly bankrupt.

They possess all the financial liquidity of a damp sponge. To push forward with this case now is to literally set fire to taxpayers' cash.

The legal action has triggered an immediate political backlash, with mounting criticism over the local authority's court strategy.

VP News has approached Councillor Jex Parkin for comment following a fur statement posted to his X account this morning, concerning this care in which he issued a sharp warning to council leadership:

“Birmingham City Council’s initial injunction request was deemed ‘flawed’ and ‘troubling’ by the court.

They’re wasting taxpayer money on pursuing this, in a bid to stop residents flying the flags of our country.”

Councillor Parkin had not responded to requests for comment at the time of going to press.

The council went fishing with dynamite and has somehow managed to blow a hole in the bottom of their own boat.

The apparent gamble that no freedom loving Brummie would step forward as a representative of Persons Unknown has failed, leading to monumental cock-up, and frankly, I cannot wait to see how they try to explain it to the Judge.

So, mark your calendars for Wednesday the 30th. When the legal circus rolls into Priory Courts, the council’s legal team will face an agonizing choice between admitting to unconstitutional overreach or confessing to blatant political discrimination.

Either way, it promises to be the finest piece of courtroom comedy Birmingham has seen in decades.

Grab your popcorn—this legal vessel is taking on water fast, and VP News will be sat right on the front bench, notebook in hand, to watch the whole magnificent disaster unfold.