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In the UK. They are roughly 1.5mm long, appear to crawl much more than fly, and seem to live in the soil of indoor potted plants. They are fast and tiny, so apologies for very shallow DOF. The first is on an aloe, the second is on a pot. They really like the soil around some capsicum plants. insect on aloe insect on pot

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Those look to me like fungus gnats. If you're looking to get rid of them, I've heard that putting a layer of rice hulls on top of the soil keeps them from reproducing. From what little I've read my identification doesn't go much deeper than superfamily, taxonomically, but it's a least a common name to work from.

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  • $\begingroup$ Some kind of Sciarid does seem plausible, thanks! $\endgroup$
    – David
    Commented Jul 14, 2020 at 8:39
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    $\begingroup$ Agreed that we're looking at a Sciarid ("Dark-winged" or "Black" fungus gnat, depending on the side of the Atlantic), in which case going deeper won't be possible without dissection and slide-mounting (see here for an abstract of the most recent Palaearctic monograph; it might be possible to download it for free from researchgate.net [look for the author Menzel], but use will require fluency in German). $\endgroup$
    – user32396
    Commented Jul 15, 2020 at 1:13

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