TENSIONS remain high at Warwickshire County Council after calls to rethink a decision not to fly the Pride flag at the council’s headquarters failed.
WCC’s new leader Coun George Finch declared recently that only three flags will now be flown outside Shire Hall in Warwick – the Union Flag, the St George’s Cross and the County Flag of Warwickshire, while future decision making about flags has been stripped from the council’s chief executive Monica Fogarty and put into the hands of WCC chairman, Coun Edward Harris.
The move followed a heated row over the decision to fly a Progress Pride Flag outside Shire Hall during Pride Month in June.
Reform councillor Finch had asked for the flag to be removed when he was elected as leader of the council, but Ms Fogarty refused.
The council’s cabinet voted in favour of its new flag policy at a meeting on September 4 but that decision was put on hold after some councillors requested a review.
However, at a special WCC meeting on Monday (September 22) attempts to have the new policy thrown out failed. The scrutiny committee voted down requests to introduce a cross-party decision-making board with a requirement to publish the reasons behind rejections.
During the meeting, Reform councillor Michael Bannister said the flag debate was “a storm in a tea cup” and suggested opposition parties were “making too much of this”.
However, the policy was branded “child like” by independent councillor Judy Falp, who believed it was only pushed through because Coun Finch did not like “being told he could not do something” by the council’s chief executive.
The Pride Progress flag is a redesigned rainbow flag, with additional colours to represent a wider range of marginalised communities.
Green councillor Sam Jones suggested the flag policy was “actually about eliminating all things Pride”.
He continued: “We used to arrest and even castrate people for even being gay in this country, and we did it in living memory.
“Raising the Pride flag is the promise that we, as custodians of this council, make. To do all that we can to ensure that we never return to those days when some people felt like they had to hide from the world.”
In a letter to the council, chairwoman of the LGBTQ+ staff network Angela Dunne said visible celebrations of diversity, such as flying the Pride flag, played a vital role in reinforcing an inclusive environment at the authority.
She continued: “During the recent staff engagement sessions, many employees highlighted the council’s inclusive culture as one of the key reasons they chose to work here and a major factor in their decision to stay.”
At the meeting Coun Bannister said the reason for the policy was that “no one organisation should be put above another”.
He added: “No one should feel that this is part of any attack upon anybody in any part or sector of the community, whether they’re outside or inside Shire Hall as employees.”
