Organiser of campaign to fly England flags was jailed for bid to smuggle illegal migrants

A man who helped organise a campaign to fly England flags was jailed for attempting to smuggle illegal migrants into Britain. Lee Twamley also joined a march calling for mass deportations in Manchester last month.

He was pictured holding a Union Jack and marching next to the leaders of Britain First, Paul Golding and Ashlea Simon. Mr Twamley raised flags in a street in Manchester city centre last week. He dismissed the revelation about his people smuggling bid as "old news".

The 55-year-old has been linked to a group of activists called "Churchill's Lions" whose members have been fundraising to buy more flags.

But in 2016 he was jailed for 20 months for his part in a "shameless" gang which made two failed attempts in June 2014 to hide migrants inside vans and drive them to Britain from France.

He pleaded guilty at Manchester Crown Court to conspiring to facilitate illegal entry into the UK and was sentenced with four others on September 9, 2016, according to Immigration Enforcement and Border Force.

At the time border chiefs said the gang plotted to bring "desperate" people into Britain illegally for their own financial gain.

The first bid was thwarted when Border Force officers carrying out checks in Coquelles, France, searched a Ford Transit which was due to travel on the Eurotunnel to Folkestone.

Officers found 11 Vietnamese nationals - eight men, two women and a child - in the back of the van.

In the second attempt, officers discovered two men and two women from Vietnam hiding beneath camping gear in the back of a Ford Connect van along with Mr Twamley and one other gang member. All 15 migrants were refused entry to the UK and handed over to French officials, according to Border Force.

The revelation about Mr Twamley sparked a backlash among viewers of his Salford T-Bone TikTok account, from where he has posted a series of videos showing flags being flown in streets in North West England.

One social media user dubbed him a "pretend patriot". He hit back, saying those he was trying to smuggle in were going to be used to grow cannabis.

In the same post, the TikTok user said he had completed his sentence and urged his critics to move on, describing the revelation as "old news".