Kemi Badenoch kicks off Pride month with warning to Tory councils not to fly ultra-woke flag that promotes 'contested ideas about gender identity and critical race theory'

By CHRISTIAN CALGIE, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT-AT-LARGE Published: 17:24, 3 June 2026 | Updated: 17:24, 3 June 2026 Kemi Badenoch has kicked off this year’s Pride month with a fresh war on woke within the Tory Party. It can be revealed that the party’s chairman sent out a warning to Conservative-run councils yesterday, ordering them not to fly the modern, ultra-progressive version of the Pride flag. In recent years, progressive institutions have increasingly ditched the traditional pride flag, consisting of six rainbow stripes, in favour of a more ‘inclusive’ version that includes trans stripes, ethnic minority stripes, and the intersex logo. But Tory-run councils have now been warned against flying this version, over claims that it promotes contested ideas about gender identity, critical race theory and social justice. The party chairman Kevin Hollinrake’s message, seen by the Mail, set out: ‘The original Rainbow Pride flag has come to be widely recognised as a symbol of respect and inclusion for gay people. ‘The so-called Progress flag, by contrast, was explicitly designed to represent a broader set of political and ideological causes.  'Its additional symbols are associated with contested ideas about gender identity, critical race theory and social justice. Rather than uniting communities, the Progress flag is a symbol of identity politics, atomising society into different and divisive identities. ‘For that reason, it cannot be regarded as a neutral symbol. Kemi Badenoch has ordered her Tory-run councils not to fly the most progressive version of the Pride flag this month The Tories warn that the most woke version of the flag promotes contested ideas about gender and Critical Race Theory ‘This is why we do not support the use of the Progress flag by councils and other public bodies.’ It came after Westminster council, won back from Labour by the Tories at the local elections, was seen erecting the woke flag on their Victoria Street offices. The Mail understands it was swiftly replaced with the traditional flag when spotted. One Conservative Party aide said: ‘Too many of our institutions have swallowed the utter tripe put about by organisations like Stonewall over the last two decades. ‘Kemi spent years in government fighting this nonsense – from the teaching of critical race theory to the SNP’s bonkers gender recognition bill - and she’s not going to give up now. ‘Under Kemi, the Conservative Party is changing so that it holds true to her values of equality under the law and her opposition to divisive identity politics.’ Tory chairman Kevin Hollinrake (left) said only the traditional version of the flag promotes inclusion The warning was made shortly after Tory-run Westminster council was spotted erecting the now-proscribed version of the Pride flag The modern intersex and BLM-inclusive version of the pride flag also poses legal challenges to public bodies, as it is technically illegal to fly without express permission. By default, public bodies can only fly the original six-striped version of the pride flag. In 2025, when serving as Foreign Secretary, David Lammy was accused of breaking the law when flying flags in support of bisexual awareness week without planning permission. The pink, purple and blue flags were snapped in the courtyard of his Whitehall office, with the Tories saying that they did not have ‘deemed consent’. The Foreign Office argued that even though the flags were visible from the public exterior of the building, because they were on ‘enclosed land’ they did not need to apply for consent to fly them. No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. You can choose on each post whether you would like it to be posted to Facebook. Your details from Facebook will be used to provide you with tailored content, marketing and ads in line with our Privacy Policy.