Police ‘assessing’ Laurence Fox Pride flag burning video

The Metropolitan Police are “assessing” a video of Laurence Fox burning a LGBTQ+ Pride flag on Father’s Day. 

On Sunday (18 June), the former actor shared a video of himself setting light to Progress Pride flag bunting he had hung up on a fence in his garden.

“The most holy month of child mutilation, Fox said. “This is what I think of your disgusting, vile, child sacrificial flag.”

He then used a lighter to set fire to each flag, repeatedly stating “goodbye” to each one as it caught light.

He added: “Goodbye Pride, which isn’t Pride. It’s just a celebration of the mutilation of children. And you can shove it.”

Fox wore a t-shirt emblazoned with a rainbow and the words ‘comes before a fall’, seemingly a reference to the idiom “pride comes before the fall”, which means an arrogant person will get their comeuppance.

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In a statement provided to PinkNews, the Metropolitan Police said they are “aware of a video posted on social media in relation to Pride flags being set alight” and are assessing the situation. 

It came after several Twitter users told Fox they would report him to police, accusing him of hate crime.

Fox replied: “I can’t tell you how much I hope the police pay me a visit. 

“Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reporting me. 

“I very much look forward to them explaining to me that I have committed a hate crime by burning an icon to child mutilation, but the doctors who chop off vulnerable healthy young girls breasts, and young boys penises haven’t.”

He added: “I’m done negotiating with the mutilators. I am tolerant of pretty much everything, but child sacrifice is an absolute red line.”

This is not the first time Fox, who has courted controversy for his views on trans rights, COVID-19, free speech and immigration, has pulled a stunt during Pride Month.

In June 2022 he was temporarily suspended from Twitter for creating a swastika from the Progress Pride flag.

Fox tilted four Pride flags in different directions so that the white, blue, pink, brown and black chevron created a swastika, associated with the Nazi Party and modern day neo-Nazis. 

In May 2022, Fox was ordered to pay £36,000 in legal fees to Drag Race UK‘s Crystal, former Stonewall trustee Simon Blake and Coronation Street actor Nicola Thorp in an ongoing legal battle.

The trio launched a defamation suit against Fox after he called them “paedophiles”. They had earlier called him “racist” – a label he rejects – after he accused the supermarket Sainsbury of “discrimination” for honouring Black History Month.

Fox requested a jury trial – a rarity in a defamation cases – claiming that “a judge could show involuntary bias”. His request was denied and he was ordered to pay the trio’s legal fees accrued in responding to the request.

Fox recently announced he will run in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip, the former constituency of ex-prime minister Boris Johnson, in the hopes of being elected as an MP. 

In 2021 he ran for mayor of London, losing his £10,000 deposit after winning less than two per cent of votes.

Laurence Fox has been contacted for comment.