To ask if you agree with ‘the flag flyers’

There were people on the March who had come into the uk, correct papers , working here, paying taxes , from the same country as the illegal ones.

Educated to PhD level (I take it that's sufficient to be allowed an opinion?).
I think people can fly whatever flag they choose on their own property but not on public buildings, landmarks, bridges and so on.
I think it's unfair to suggest that only less educated people have questionable views, because I've also met some folk who are highly educated, in paper terms at least, but who are also quite blinkered regarding the lived experiences of others, and who've had fairly privileged lives.

WC, university educated, and grew up somewhere where sectarian flag flying was rife and no I don’t agree with the flag fliers because not for one second do I think that people
have been taken over by a positive wave of patriotic fervour.

I am torn by them. Half of me knows the horrific racist undertone of them, and I saw the guys putting them up on our road and they were exactly what I expected them to be - cans of lager in their hands, not a straight tooth between them, knuckle dragging idiots.

But….and this is where I struggle. We are in this country afforded the right to peaceful protest, and pinning flags up everywhere is by all accounts a peaceful protest.

So I don’t like the undertone but I do support the right to peaceful protest.

FWIW I was bought up middle class but consider myself to be very working class and educated to A level.

No, I don't.

Especially as in our city, it's come to light that the person behind it who positioned it as 'civic pride in our community' is a far right supporter, and has links with Turning Point USA, who I assume bankrolled some of the initial funding.

We've seen an increase in racist graffiti and physical attacks on people who aren't white, and our local council after weeks of dithering about taking them down, are now doing so to the tune of a £250k bill to do so.

I'm all for pride in your country / neighbourhood but wish instead of hollow gestures, that the people who paid money for the flags or put them up, donated that cash to local community groups and / or volunteered their time locally to help out. Funnily enough, since the whole thing started we've seen absolutely no increase in people asking to volunteer at the two local groups I'm a part of.

Op, for info, Poorly educated BIL , couple of gce:s, no formal qualifications, earns a six figure salary and in a senior position in a very large hospitality organisation, don’t be so patronising as to assume not having fancy degrees means you are automatically stupid and working class

Degree educated professional - do not agree with the flags. The only person I know who does agree with the flags and who went on the march is not a university graduate.

I understand people's concerns about migration but there is a lot of ignorance around the issue and the protesters are targeting the wrong people. There need to be better systems for processing asylum claims.

I think most people do not know that asylum seekers are not illegal until their claims have been processed.

Remember Gordon Brown dismissing the concerns of a Labour voter in Rochdale in 2010? She talked to him about her worries with immigration and crime. His response was that she was, "a bigot". Now the issue has accelerated to the extent that no-one can dismiss it any more.

This thread reminds me of this - dismissing of people because of some misplaced superiority.

Yes
degree educated
professional senior director level with high income

I’m working class and I think people who fly these flags and paint roundabouts are thick as shit. They don’t realise that once they have “stopped the boats” they will likely fall into the next ground of people they want to get “rid off”. What I'm baffled by is the flag shaggers have move in common with those poor people arriving on the boats than they do the temu trump wannabe and they don’t realise that.

I’ve moved up to working class due to social mobility and I hate everything about the faee re age quoting flag toting right wing massive. Hate it with a vengeance and find it quite terrifying.

Cleo65

So everyone else can wave their flags frantically in support of whatever they're passionate about....but not people who want Britain to be great again (& are 'working class & uneducated').
Odd concept...

Theres a huge difference between waving your flag at a match or using it as a political image

I can’t believe that PIP case wouldn’t get through on MC or at tribunal. I mean surely he has substantial care needs and easily evidenced?! That’s awful.

Degree and professional qualification, higher earner and don’t agree with them and neither does my two GCSE owning, manual worker husband - mostly because the people who have put them up in our local towns are proud racists (and more) who post their vile opinions all over social media.

We live in a smaller village that’s thankfully been missed out.

THIS

That’s not what I saw
Infact the reverse
the police arrested 25 people
8 protesters
17 counter protesters

Everyone jumps on this and waves the racist flag, and perhaps there is a percentage of people using the situation for that. But there’s a large percentage of people who are fed up with the situation and how it affects them, their family and community, and are using it to make a point. They aren’t being heard, so this is the only way of making their point.

Lovely post.
I can’t understand the upset at all the flag flying
I find it nice too.
United we stand.
im not a racist - some of my best friends are not of ‘white British’ descent and I work with a wide diversity of lovely, lovely people, but somehow it’s - Union Jack/George cross = racism
I don’t like idiots though , or mean , spiteful , or unkind people, but other than that black, white or Martian green.. I take people as I find them.

This ⬆️

👏

The poorly educated are easy to manipulate that's why Donald Trump freely admitted smart people don't vote for him. I listened to Tim Hartford take apart Nigel Farage's lies about unemployment figures on More or Less earlier. The information is all out there but if you don't have the education or an enquiring mind you don't even look for it.
That said I do think you have to be fucking thick to believe Farage after he so provably lied about Brexit.
And this is the problem: we shouldn't have to "call politicians out on their lies". They should tell the truth, and face sanctions when they don't, like the rest of us do if we lie to the authorities about our taxes, or who was driving a speeding car. Boris Johnson is one of many who has set the bar for political behaviour so incredibly low, that we don't bat an eyelid about politicians telling lies. We say "oh, it's what they do". We should be angry about this, but instead, people seem to worship blatant liars like Farage and Johnson like deities, because they like the sound of the miracles they swear they are going to work.

Well yes and the responses of this and the multiple other Flag threads show us how many agree with her. The trouble is most people don’t really how offensive their sneering at the working class is, they don’t even realise they’re doing it as it’s so acceptable. The classism & snobbery on MN has always been off the charts though, even more so that I encounter in RL.

That is her intention.

Yes I agree with flags. Degree educated but as a mature student which means I didn’t go the middle class straight to uni route as I was working class and it just wasn’t the norm for us at the time.

The reaction to flags is based in pure snobbery and classism. Personally I think they’re a pretty benign response by the working classes to having been utterly suffocated and prevented from discussing mass migration and its impact primarily on THEM over the last decade. Political & middle classes made it impossible for them to discuss what was happening to them, their lives, their schools, their areas, their ability to be housed etc, by constantly sneering gammon/racist/bigot any time they tried to express the issues.

Seeing the flags gladden by heart, and how people respond to them helps to pick the wheat from the chaff as to who is or isn’t an unpleasant snob living in a little bubble.

My friend was showing me videos of a counter protest she went to near a hotel. The atmosphere was almost festival like. People were singing, playing drums and were happy. She then showed me the video if the actual protest on the other side of the road. I couldn’t believe the difference. The pent up
agression and potential for violence was written on every single face. They were just there to pick a fight no matter who they were. My friend said she so t ho to anymore counter protests as she felt so unsafe afterwards. Which is sad.