Essex County Council removed the Ukrainian flag from outside County Hall in Chelmsford on Friday and replaced it with a second Union flag, days after Reform UK ended the Conservatives' 25-year hold on the local authority.

The flag had flown there since March 2022, when it was first raised after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Its removal came as the newly elected Reform administration began setting out how it will use the council’s most visible symbols of authority.

Peter Harris, chosen by Reform councillors to lead Essex County Council on Monday, called the handover a proud moment and said the change did not lessen the support local people have shown Ukraine since 2022. He said the replacement of the Ukraine flag does not diminish the support and generosity that Essex residents have shown the people of Ukraine since 2022, and I know this will continue.

A spokesman for the council said there would be discussions with the county’s Ukrainian community before the flag is given a new home. Reform has already said it will only fly Union, national, county or armed forces flags outside council buildings it controls, a pledge that now governs the frontage of County Hall.

The decision has drawn criticism from Lee Scott, who said the move was deeply disappointing and sent the wrong message. He warned that the removal of the flag could encourage pro-Kremlin politics locally and called it a performative gesture. For Essex to turn its back on a visible symbol of solidarity risks importing the language and instincts of pro-Kremlin politics into our county at the very moment our allies across Europe continue to stand firm in support of Ukraine, he said.

That argument goes to the heart of the new political order in Essex. What Reform presents as a reset of council branding is, for critics, a signal about how the authority intends to read international events from the front of County Hall. The flag may have come down, but the debate over what it represented in Essex is only beginning.