A council tree surgeon has been stripped of his job after erecting several hundred union flags on an A-Road in Cambridgeshire.
Billy Crotty attached more than 300 British flags to lampposts on the A1198 near Royston.
Steeple Morden Parish Council has now cancelled the arborist’s £9,000 contract to remove conifers.
It said the decision had been taken as it is a ‘politically neutral’ body and ‘felt it necessary to withdraw the contract’.
Mr Crotty insisted that the local authority had done the opposite of remaining neutral in making a ‘political judgement’ on his signs.
Sign up for all of the latest stories
Start your day informed with Metro’s News Updates newsletter or get Breaking News alerts the moment it happens.
He told the BBC he didn’t want to ‘intimidate’ anyone, but admitted that the flags were at least part of a protest against illegal immigration.
‘I’ve got five children to feed so it is a bit of a worry.’
Council chair Nick Badger said that Mr Crotty’s flag raising had generated ‘intense press interest’.
He said: ‘As a parish council, we are a non-political organisation and as such we remain neutral on the matter, and therefore felt it necessary to withdraw the contract.’
It comes as a campaign group has been charged more than £2,300 for erecting 62 English flags in Scarborough, North Yorkshire.
One ‘patriot’ part of Operation Raise The Colours has now been told he must pay £36.27 per flag plus VAT towards the cost of their removal by the local authority.
A letter to the group from the council said that it would pursue costs irrespective of whether the activists wished to retrieve the flags.
It continued: ‘Additionally, the outcome we are also seeking is that no further flags are erected, to avoid any further safety issues and so that we do not have to spend more of our limited resources on this issue which would be better deployed elsewhere.’
Operation Raise The Colours has spent the weekend in France trying to slash boats migrants are using to cross the channel.
At one point, they filmed themselves being chased from a migrant camp and having stones thrown at them.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.