February 25, 2022 11.49 am This story is over 32 months old

“I’ve turned off political pride”: Ex-cop puts buckets over Lincolnshire Police HQ rainbow lights

“We can’t have the police signalling political allegiances to anybody”

A former PC representing a group known as Fair Cop has placed buckets over the rainbow lights at Lincolnshire Police’s HQ in Nettleham, saying “we can’t have the police signalling political allegiances to anybody”.

February marks LGBT+ History Month and as part of Lincolnshire Police’s commitment to celebrating equality, diversity and inclusion, the force announced a change to the usual white lighting to cast the rainbow flag across the HQ building this month.

Lincolnshire Police Chief Constable Chris Haward previously defended the force’s decision, which he said “wasn’t a costly one”, amid criticism from someone who said it was a ‘waste of taxpayers’ money’. However, when police were asked by The Lincolnite to comment on the Fair Cop video the force said “we’ll politely decline”.

Fair Cop, which was founded by Harry Miller, posted a video on Twitter on Thursday, February 24, which went viral with 29,400 views. In the video former police officer Miller completed what he described as the “Light Bucket Challenge”, by placing placed 15 lights on 15 buckets to “turn the political lights off”.

A previous Humberside Police investigation ruled “transphobic tweets” written by Harry were illegal, the High Court heard in February 2020.

In the recent video at Lincolnshire Police headquarters Harry, who is from Caistor, said the police headquarters is “lit up like a Stonewall [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights charity] rainbow Christmas tree in the middle of an energy crisis”.

The man said he’d done his “civil duty by coming down here and turning off all these rainbows lights”. | Screenshot: Fair Cop

Fair Cop is a ‘group of individuals who have come together over shared concerns about police attempts to criminalise people for expressing opinions that don’t contravene any laws’, with more than 25,000 followers on Twitter.

In the video, Harry said: “We’ve nothing against the rainbow at all, you want to rainbow, you rainbow, but you and I know, we all know, that the rainbow signifies a political direction.

“It signifies a political allegiance to Stonewall and we can’t have the police signalling political allegiances to anybody, I don’t care what your belief is.

“I’ve done my civil duty by coming down here and turning off all these rainbows lights. Rainbow lights are political and we don’t want rainbow lights on a police station, so what I’ve done,

“I’ve done the political light bucket challenge and I’ve captured all the lights in a bucket and I’ve turned off the political pride LGBTQI+++ lights and made this a police station for everyone.”

Lincolnshire Police is lighting up their HQ building in Nettleham in rainbow lights in support of LGBT+ History Month. | Photo: Lincolnshire Police

He added: “Seriously, we don’t believe the police should be lighting up police stations in any colours other than the blue light of policing.”

The rainbow colours are not just used by Stonewall but by many LGBTQ+ representatives, campaigners and allies across the board to promote equality.