Raise the Love

Not The Flags

Nov 14, 2025

If you have spent any time in or around a provincial town recently then, chances are, you will have seen a great many flags tied to lampposts. If you’d landed in a spacecraft, having never been to England before, then you’d be forgiven for thinking that there was a national celebration happening, a coronation or perhaps the winning of a major sporting tournament.

Unfortunately, you’d be misplaced in your assumptions, the flags currently on display have much more sinister connotations. I have written a couple of long posts over on 𝕏 about one particular group that are placing these flags around the West Midlands area. It’s them I’ll mostly concentrate on for this article — Raise the Colours, but there are other groups and individuals that are springing up around the country, using threats of violence and intimidation if anyone challenges them.

Make no mistake, this movement of men is well-funded and backed up by some very dangerous people. I have been contacted by several groups of people that feel too terrorised to challenge these criminals, so I decided to dive further into their murky underworlds of insurance scams, football violence and sex dolls — sounds like a title in the making!

My Article art comes courtesy of Katee Dewolfe and BRIG — the Birmingham Race Impact Group. More about that later.

As I say, this will be predominantly about Raise the Colours, but even that name is contentious as there is more than one group calling themselves that. For example, there is also Operation Raise the Colours, operated by ex EDL member, Andrew Currien — we’ll circle back to him later. The links to the far-right aren’t challenging to find, but even Elon Musk and Robert Jenrick are involved in this mass disruption event.

I have spoken about the flags on more than one occasion on our podcast, No Holds Barred, and even spoke to Lou Calvey about it from her view as an asylum expert. Lou told us that when she visits asylum seekers in their accommodation, that they are not at all moved by the display of flags; that, in some instances, they have travelled for years to reach the safety of the UK, so some flags on lampposts don’t even register in their psyche. The flags intimidate British people, not immigrants.

So what is it, then, that is making this particular movement so attractive to the far-right? Patriotism? If we’re being generous, that may be where it started, but it has moved away from that at a rate of knots, to the extremist behaviour we’re now seeing on our streets. As you’ll see shortly, the mask of patriotism easily slips off to reveal a more menacing façade of threat and violence.

The epidemic of flags appearing across the country began in the summer. Images began peppering 𝕏 of streets lined with lampposts, bedecked at half-mast by scratty and cheap England flags.

Interjection
I am purposely using England alone because this is unique to the country. The xenophobic nature of these people exists, in their minds, to England as a lone country — not Britain or the United Kingdom. They may use the Union Flag to suit their narrative, but it is a specifically English phenomenon.

There are numerous names that will appear, some of which you will know, but others may not be familiar; the main players in this movement seek to change that, by any means necessary — they want their moment of far-right fame like their idol, Tommy Robinson — so let’s start with Ryan Bridge and Elliot Stanley.

I spent time and looked into Ryan Bridge already over on 𝕏 so I’ll copy and paste some stuff from that article now, saves me a great deal of time. The original is here if you’d like a look.

Bridge is a businessman from Birmingham with a decidedly shady past. In fact, as far as I can tell, he’s still under investigation by Spanish police for his part in a scam that defrauded millions from Spanish hoteliers. He was charged alongside seven other British residents with scamming almost £10 million pounds as part of a bogus compensation claims launched through a short-lived business called UK Holiday Claims Limited, among others.

Bridge is listed on Companies house as the sole trader attached to that business. It has never posted any accounts or turned over any money. According to a report in the Majorca Daily Bulletin1:

“It was a major story in Mallorca a few years ago. British holidaymakers who had been staying at certain all-inclusive hotels were filing numerous claims in the UK for compensation because of alleged food poisoning.

In September 2017, the Guardia Civil mounted a major operation against fraudulent holiday sickness claims. Various businesses and homes in Puerto Portals, Bendinat and San Agustín were raided and six arrests were made.

Eight Britons accused of having formed an organisation dedicated to getting tourists to make false claims are now set to stand trial for fraud. They include Laura C., whose company, Elite Project Marketing SL, is alleged to have sent information regarding these claims to law firms in England. The court instruction names a Ryan Bridge as one of the people in the UK who was in charge of processing the false claims gathered in Mallorca.”

Ryan Bridge also, supposedly, runs Nationwide Personal Injury Specialists — an online claims company. Another sole trader enterprise, another claims company although, driving around in a rented cherry picker now seems to be his sole occupation.

Next, Elliot Stanley, another Birmingham resident and one who I’m reliably informed lives in a very swanky part of town; an area in which many Premier League footballers reside — Barnt Green; once the home to such notables as Jack Grealish and Ron Atkinson. Several sources have told me that the particular street, on which Stanley resides, has zero flags attached to the lampposts. Funny that.

Interjection
Sorry, I will try to limit these going forward, but this is very important and needs to be said before we carry on.
I have been approached by many people and groups that are concerned about being doxed, or worse, by these characters. They are genuinely frightened of repercussions if their names are revealed so, in the interests of their safety, I will just refer to this collective of multiple people as ‘my source[s]’.

Elliot Stanley has an interesting business background as well — purveyor of sex dolls with his family. Yep, you heard that correctly. Stanley and his wife and, at the time, seventeen-year-old son, had a foray into the online sex doll vending business. There is a fascinating video from the online channel, Truly, over on YouTube2 that details their sexcapades [sorry]. The title of said video is called “I Help My Parents Run A Sex Doll Business”. I’m no prude and I don’t judge others for their activities, so check it out for yourselves, it’s medium safe for work — MSFW!

The company, that sold and rented out [YIKES!] sex dolls, seems to have ceased trading during 2022, when, according to Companies House, they returned a £0 balance but owing £67,3493. The company has gone through a strike off each year, but then pulls back from the brink after the First Gazette is announced. That happened in May of this year again. So, technically, the company is still live, but the Overview shows overdue accounts and confirmation statements going back to 2023.

The market for rented sex dolls seems to have dried up.

So that’s one of the businesses linked to Elliot Stanley, but we have others, most of which are dissolved years previously, but one in particular stands out — HT1 Ltd. This has an almost identical profile on Companies House, going through several years worth of strike off actions but being pulled back at the last minute so that the company is never dissolved but is left in a tax limbo — no accounts are made up and no money is declared to HMRC.

It’s unclear what this business does/did as its Nature of business (SIC) is listed as: 82990 — Other business support service activities not elsewhere classified. This one shows accounts overdue since 2022 and confirmation statement since May 2025.

There is something incredibly interesting and pertinent to the theme of this article, though, hidden down in the weeds, in the names previously associated with the company. The records indicate that it was incorporated on 3rd May 2017 by Jade Stanley, Elliot’s wife, but on 29th January 2018 a new director was appointed — Mr Dino John Wager. It was a short-lived appointment [he was removed on 8th June 2018] but one that carries with it a link into the world of football violence.

In an article from BusinessLive in 20064, Dino Wager is listed among 60 violent football hooligans that were arrested and convicted as a result of Operation Tripoli, after a mass brawl following a West Brom — Aston Villa derby game in 2004. It states his name and occupation of floor layer, and the sentence he received for his part in the violence — eight months in jail and a seven-year match ban. It’s unclear from the article whether Wager was a Villa or Baggies fan; not that it matters much, but I do like the detail of things.

Now we’ve covered the background two main players in the ‘official’ Raise the Colours group, let’s bring things up to date and take a look at their current activities. When I began researching this, before I had been contacted by actual residents of Birmingham, it all seemed very dark, but the perpetrators Bridge and Stanley have always, publicly, asserted that they only do things for patriotic reasons and have no links to the far-right in England. I beg to differ.

This was the genuine photo that GB News ran with. Not, an advert for Stanley’s sex doll business.

On an appearance on GB News5, they both put forward their protestations that they were only being patriotic and couldn’t understand the backlash from ‘the white, liberal middle class’. This type of speech has developed into an ongoing pattern of abuse that is levied at anyone who dares challenge them.

Let’s be very clear, what they are doing is illegal. It contravenes the Highways Act 1980, Sections 132 & 137. Each offence carries a penalty of, up to, £1,000.

Now that’s out of the way, the question has to be asked, why are the police and/or local councils not being more proactive in stopping this illegal act? A question I have put to West Midlands Police [WMP], who passed me to their Corporate Comms team. I asked WMP why they had been slow to react to the blatant vandalism going on continuously but, more importantly, why they had been slow or reluctant to engage with the local communities that were complaining to them … a lot.

In their response to me, WMP were very reluctant to offer a comment but, when pushed, said:

“We’d encourage anyone who has been threatened or abused to get in touch with us so that we can investigate.

In terms of raising the flag, that is not an offence that police would investigate on its own, but we do liaise with the local authority, who have responsibility for removing flags from street furniture.”

This backs up the personal stories I have been receiving, West Midlands Police seem to be washing their hands of the entire farrago, allowing Bridge and Stanley to operate without fear of the law. Shameful in my opinion. An absolute failure of policing from community level, all the way up to the Police and Crime Commissioner — Simon Foster. You can see why residents do not want to be identified with this extremely lax approach to their duty.

My sources have provided me with examples of many occasions where the police were asked to intervene but, in fact, allowed Bridge and his cherry picker to proceed in their tying of flags, under police escort. There is video evidence of the police being actively hostile toward a community group in Stirchley, where Elliot Stanley appeared to be aggressive whilst holding the leash of a very large Rottweiler dog; all the while his cameraman was surreptitiously filming the local residents that were there to peacefully protest the flag raisers.

I have edited this video slightly bringing it down in length, but you can see, on watching, how aggressive Bridge and, in particular, Stanley can be. The full video is available on the Kings Heath United Against Racism Facebook Page. Click the link and check them out. This is where I first spotted the artwork that’s at the top of the page, a man in the long form version of the video has it on his jacket. The piece comes from the Birmingham Race Impact Group6 and an artist called Katee Dewolfe. It’s well worth reading the articles and stories on their site — absolutely fascinating, and educational.

We’re straying into essay territory here, and I think I should start wrapping things up before it goes too long, but there are other links that I need to bring in before I do. Firstly, the Stephen Yaxley-Lennon/Tommy Robinson and far-right connections. Bridge has been repeatedly photographed with members of the far-right. This is a screenshot of a Tommy Robinson 𝕏 video7 from the end of October, showing Bridge at a far-right march.

Ryan Bridge travelled to Southampton to join a far-right march in October — a long way from his day job in Birmingham.

Bridge certainly seems to be seeking his infamy far more than his counterpart, Stanley. He is in every video that goes out on social media.

The Tommy Robinson link to the flags is not limited to Raise the Colours however and in a video from a Lichfield-based flagger, he let slip that Robinson had actually been supplying the flags for him to attach to lampposts. You can see from his face, as soon as he said it, he knew he’d dropped the proverbial clanger. Take a look.

Thanks to the legendary Alex Andreou’s 𝕏 account for this video8 that I have trimmed down slightly.

The links to Robinson don’t stop there and, as reported by the London Economic in August9, Elon Musk appears to be, potentially, bankrolling some of these groups through the likes of Robinson and possibly even MP, Rupert Lowe. We now know, for certain, that Robinson is receiving financial backing from Musk and 𝕏, after the latter broadcast the details about their funding of his most recent legal battle on their Global Government Affairs channel.10

Robinson has been very busy promoting Raise the Colours to his 1.7M followers on 𝕏 and regularly reposts Raise the Colours content.

Sidebar - Raise the Colours blocked me on 𝕏 recently after I posted about their website being in breach of GDPR regulations and asked a question of their tax implications with its ‘fundraising campaign’ sitting at, to date, £31,970.38. They are NOT a charity so must pay tax on these donations.

To finish things off, I want to touch on the fact that Raise the Colours have rapidly pivoted into the wider world of the far-right and Christian Fundamentalism. Their Instagram page is now peppered with ‘stop the boats’ messaging, anti-migrant posts and their most recent recruit, Danny Tommo — a far-right agitator with a criminal past and ex-bestie of Tommy Robinson. They appear to be hoovering up the undesirables of the far-right, with appearances by Jason Marriner — an ex Chelsea Headhunter and serious proponent of football violence in his past11, ‘Young Bob’ — the radicalised Turning Point teenager that is perpetually being arrested, and Liam Tuffs — far-right podcaster and all-round bad guy.

I haven’t even mentioned their association with Glen Hudson — another convicted football hooligan12 and now proprietor of The Private Club in Birmingham, which describes itself on its website as ‘a swingers, fetish and sex club venue’. I won’t link to the site as it is strictly NSFW, but you can Google it for further information if you like!

During the Stirchley community gathering on the 18th of October [video above], Raise the Colours were accompanied by American broadcaster, Dale Hurd for the Christian Broadcasting Network [CBN] and his cameraman, showing yet another connection to the wider far-right, and it's tilt to faux Christianity.

Sidebar — I have an article for next week about Turning Point UK, if you are interested in the weaponisation of the church by the far-right. Sign up, and it will be delivered straight to your inbox.

One last thing for this article, for now. At the beginning, I mentioned other groups in and around the Midlands area and, in particular, Operation Raise the Colours. This group is spearheaded by a man whose nom de guerre is Andy Saxon, but in actuality, is called Andrew Currien. Currien, a long-time associate of Tommy Robinson, has been letting us know, publicly, that he is receiving donations of flags from Britain First — the UK’s least successful far-right political movement, headed up by Paul Golding.

Have a read of Hope Not Hate’s profile of this particular character, but, in essence, he was an ex English Defence League enforcer that was jailed for his part in a racist murder in 2009.13

We don’t have to look far to see the proof of their involvement with this alternative flagging group, as Golding broadcast it on 𝕏 in August.

Proof, if it were ever needed, that this is a far-right affair.

This has been a long exercise and drawn on many people for sources, so I hope you have found it worthwhile. My takeaways are that this is a very well-funded group, operating outside the law on the streets, and, as far as I can tell, outside the tax laws of our country. They operate with menace and intimidation toward anyone who challenges their activities, and go out of their way to attend events organised by communities protesting the vandalisation of their neighbourhoods.

I believe this began with xenophobic, anti-immigration sentiment, but has very rapidly morphed into a seriously nasty, far-right organisation.

This is not the end of this particular investigation, so keep coming back; even better, hit the little Subscribe button just down here 👇, and you’ll never miss an article. It’s free.

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