Reform UK grants conference access to flag campaign leader facing harassment charges

The leader of a flag campaign group who was arrested on suspicion of causing religiously and racially aggravated harassment was given access to Reform UK’s annual conference.

Ryan Bridge, whose Raise the Colours group has put up hundreds of union and St George flags across England, told the Guardian he was invited to the conference.

Raise the Colours has argued the campaign displays flags as a sign of patriotism, but it has been accused of using them to spread anti-immigrant sentiment.

Bridge’s attendance at the event comes as Reform UK has been attempting to attract more wavering centre-ground voters who have been reluctant to support the party. But a threat from its hard-right rival Restore Britain has given the party reason to pull rightwards.

At a conference event on Saturday, Nigel Farage paid tribute to the flag campaign and told Bridge personally that Reform UK would offer legal support. “What your campaign has done is wake up vast parts of this country,” Farage told Bridge from a stage inside the conference after the activist was among three people selected to ask questions of the Reform leader during a discussion hosted by Jeremy Kyle.

“If we can help you legally, we will,” said Farage, after Bridge told him he had an injunction against him putting up flags in Oxfordshire and was also facing one from Birmingham city council.

Bridge was among 10 activists who were banned from France this year after they travelled there to take part in actions intended to stop migrant boats embarking across the Channel.

He is also named along with six other people in action pursued by Birmingham city council as it seeks a high court injunction to stop activists from Raise the Colours putting flags up. The first hearing of that application will be on Tuesday.

Bridge has been on bail since Thames Valley police confirmed earlier this year that a 44-year-old male from Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, was arrested after reports of incidents of public order offences on Abingdon Road, Oxford. The force said he was arrested “on suspicion of causing racially and religiously aggravated harassment, alarm or distress” and that he had been released on police bail. Bridge denies all wrongdoing.

He is also facing a trial in East Sussex. He entered a not guilty plea at Brighton magistrates court last month after being charged with common assault in relation to an incident in the city in June and was granted bail.

Bridge told the Guardian at the Reform conference on the outskirts of Birmingham on Friday: “We have come to the event today in light of it’s in my home city of Birmingham and with what’s going on with Raise the Colours … what we are doing.”

“We got an invite, so we thought we would come along,” he added, saying he was not a member of Reform.

There are no general admission tickets to the Reform conference for members of the public. Conference attenders are almost entirely members, with the addition of some lobbyists, people with business interests, diplomatic representatives and members of the press. Commercial passes can be bought for £650 and “platinum” tickets can cost thousands.

Asked if his arrests posed a problem with him being at the event, Bridge said: “Being accused of a criminal act of raising a flag of your country in your country, I think is lesser than the actual criminal act that is going on on a daily basis from the far-left ultra NGOs.”

Reform UK did not respond when contacted about Bridge being at its conference.

His attendance was criticised by the anti-fascist campaign group Hope Not Hate, which said: “That someone as extreme as Ryan Bridge was inside the Reform conference with a pass is genuinely shocking.”