Dear readers — we hope you enjoyed your weekend. Kate is writing on a birthday cake comedown having celebrated turning 35 yesterday with generous amounts of pistachio and raspberry sponge. Olivia, meanwhile, spent Saturday refreshing her Spanish at Son Caney Cuban bar in Digbeth. Salud!
Today, local ‘patriot’ flagging group Raise the Colours’ (RtC) days could be numbered, with Birmingham city council rumoured to be seeking a court injunction against them. In June, similar measures were taken against Raise the Colours Oxfordshire by the county council, in a case that also named key figures from the Birmingham branch.
This isn’t the only link between Raise the Colours Birmingham and the Oxfordshire chapter. Earlier this month, Ben Cullen — a prominent member of the Oxfordshire group — was accused of making indecent images of children. Now it seems that Raise the Colours Birmingham are desperately trying to erase any associations with Cullen.
Elsewhere, mosque leaders from across the country met in Birmingham on Saturday to discuss how to tackle hate crimes against their places of worship. All this and more is in your Brum in Brief.
A quick reminder: The Dispatch is hiring for an exciting staff role. Are you a dedicated journalist who longs to work in an old-school journalism environment? Good news: we’re searching for a stellar new writer to join Kate and Olivia and time is running out to apply — the deadline is this Friday.
Catch up and coming up:
At the weekend, writer and musician Shaun Patrick Hand reflected on the house parties and mayhem that birthed B-Town, the short-lived indie music scene of the early 2010s, that led to Digbeth being dubbed “the Shoreditch of Birmingham” by the NME. We had a lot of positive comments on this one from people who evidently wish it still was. “Me and my pals still talk about b-town like it was Studio 54” said one on Instagram.
Shaun Patrick Hand
Last week, Kate’s article about plans from our new prime minister, Andy Burnham, to wrestle power away from Whitehall and into the regions got readers talking in the comments. “Just the sort of story I was looking for RE: devolution. Thank you,” wrote Chris.
Kate Knowles
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Photo of the week
After we put a call out for photos from Birmingham in the 2010s for our weekend read, several people got in touch to say the best scene was actually in the late noughties. This snap from a basement gig held at a house party on Balsall Heath’s Trafalgar Road in 2007 suggests there could be something to it. Submitted by Joe Sutton.
Brum in Brief
Raze the colours
Birmingham city council could be “weeks away” from securing a court injunction banning ‘patriot’ group Raise the Colours from hoisting St George flags to lampposts around the city. Locals have complained to the Guardian that BCC is giving “free reign” to Raise the Colours, who have been active since last autumn, “People are being intimidated, people are being threatened, people are being doxed [their personal details published online],” claimed one anonymous resident, adding that she has heard the council is “weeks away” from securing an injunction against the group. A precedent for such legal action has been set in nearby Oxfordshire, where the county council secured an injunction against their local Raise the Colours group in June. As well as naming Ben Cullen, the most prominent Raise the Colours activist in Oxfordshire, that suit also targeted Ryan Bridge — co-founder of Birmingham’s Raise the Colours group.
Green party councillor Ali Duncan said the council was in a “quagmire” over the issue but promised “it will be stopped.”
Ben who?
It looks like the tide is turning against Raise the Colours Birmingham. In January, regular trips to France to ‘stop the boats’ were seemingly curtailed after French officials banned 10, unnamed British activists from entering the country following reports that Raise the Colours had conducted anti-migrant activities on its northern and western coasts. June brought the Oxfordshire county council injunction that has stopped Bridge and co from raising any colours within the region. Now the indecent imagery charges against Ben Cullen are causing a further headache. The Birmingham group have already tried to distance themselves from Cullen, despite multiple pictures that show him interacting with the likes of Bridge. But their efforts are going further. In a video posted to Raise the Colours Birmingham’s Instagram page over the weekend, Ryan Bridge can be seen arguing with a young member of the public (as usual). But the clip has been edited: what’s missing is the bit where the young man asks Bridge: “Is your name Ben?”. “No,” says Bridge. “I must be mistaking you for another nonce,” replies the young man. Mysteriously, this ended up on the cutting room floor…
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