To ask if you agree with ‘the flag flyers’

I have a shocker for you, I am an architect, my husband is a surgeon, I am a partner in our practice, I am mixed race and I agree with the flags and Farage. I'm sure this will blow some minds but it isn't just white people who disagree with the current situation.

We need a change, I believe we need to force Governments to be more transparent about immigration and specifically asylum processes and if flags do it I'm on board.

Do I have a problem with the flags in general? No. It's fine to be patriotic.

Do I have a problem with the flags when they're used to intimidate people who aren't white and straight? Yes. "Protect our women!" They shout, until something happens to a woman in their life and they couldn't give two fucking shits about it.

I'm white, but not straight, and every time I pass one of those flags, I am genuinely worried about my safety. I can't imagine what it's like for people who aren't white, or aren't British-born, or for those who have come to live in the UK (whether legally or not). Hell, even for those who ARE British-born but are still of a different race or background.

Maybe I'm generalising. But they generalise everyone else, and it's much more harmful to generalise minorities than it is to generalise straight white people.

Agree with this. Yes I think there's manipulation and cynicism involved in this whole push, of course, but the problem is also real.

Middle class educated liberal people are more likely not to be affected by issues of stretched resources and alienation from their own communities, or even aware of the extent of the problem.

I wasn't myself until I moved to a different area and DCs went to a different school. A friend's DD is not invited to any birthday parties in her class, no one will come to hers, she can't have any friends to play. It is a massive problem.

Was questioning who would be flying a Boyne standard though in a village near me recently 🤔

Absolutely have enjoyed seeing all the Saltires flying high when out and about in recent days. Working class. Degree educated. Used to work in a middle class occupation.

Nope I don't agree.

Great thread. Such rigorous research standards. 👍🏼

Have you factored in that the bleeding heart liberals may have degrees, but they also are most likely to live in areas least affected by high influxes of low-skilled immigrants and they’re less likely to be affected by poor access to services and antisocial/criminal behaviour?

Do we really want to import large numbers of young males from cultures which are anti democratic and misogynistic?

If you don’t like Farage because the mere whiff of the riff raff doesn’t do it for you, why aren’t the ‘respectable’ parties listening to the disaffected poor?

Yes I have post-degree qualifications and no, I don’t fly flags, but I have eyes and can see exactly why disempowered people are choosing this form of direct action. Why can’t you?

You’ve obviously never visited the part of your nation called Northern Ireland then?

Oops

This

I think probably there are many different people flying flags at the moment, with different approaches to the movement.

Being proud of Britain feels crucial in the face of a tranche of the populace that has a neurotic tendency to over focus on criticisms of Britain for things long past.

inevitably for every swing of the pendulum in one direction, there will be it’s opposite, so of course any feeling of being undermined results in a compensation.

The flags are clearly a racist dogwhistle, BUT I think there are certainly people who don't realise that and think that they are merely celebrating their country and trying to take back the England flag from the skinhead BNP types who have co-opted the flag, or flags are being hung by those who are trying to say that the level of illegal migration is too much, but who do not hate people of colour. And you can't tell who's doing it for those reasons from those who do have darker reasons for it.

I can certainly see how immigrants of all stripes would see the flags as a threat. And when I say all stripes, I mean legal, illegal, and people who are born and raised British but who have Black or Asian heritage due to older family members or ancestors immigrating.

I do agree that it's a pity the flag has long since been tainted by the far right, and I can see how people might want to take back the flag from those people, but I don't think this is the way to do it. The country needs to start using the England flag as a mainstream badge, including on things like foods and goods being made in England having the England flag, and maybe VisitEngland running a campaign using the flag. For example, Duchy products don't have an England flag on them. It could be used as a mark of quality. The thing is, it was never used, which was why the far right could take it over, as they have done over the past twenty years or so.

The flag campaign by the public is rabble-rousing and could easily lead to verbal and physical abuse of anyone who is a person of colour, and that is not OK.

If I hang a load of tat I bought off Amazon on a lamppost outside your house, it's not stealing if you take it down and get rid of it.

Where did this sneering come from in our culture?! It’s so toxic! ‘ what class are you, how educated are you’ ??? How is this different from measuring the size of peoples skulls to determine if they are acceptable!
Absolutely repulsive levels of assumed superiority over others.

If someone has paid for them, then it's stealing.

It's not stealing to tidy up some fly-tipped junk left in the street.

You stole them? Did you give them back?

im educated to GCSE level and i live in social housing But if you read some of my threads you will see i write well and am articulate despite only being educated to GCSE level. Working class background Parents owned own house and i fucking hate Farage. Hes a grade A arsehole. Im also half Italian and Brexit affected this nationality too.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-46836957

I think if their flag is on a flagpole or potentially in a window on a house then I could buy into this flag business being about patriotism.
I think though when people are out after dark wearing balaclavas with their ladders tying them to lampposts it’s clear they have an agenda that is nothing to do with patriotism. I have witnessed this happening. If they’re so patriotic why are they wearing balaclavas to hide their identity?

I don’t think about it. Flag flying is completely alien to my personality, so alien that I can’t even spend the psychological space to form an opinion. People can do what they want.

I see you’ve altered your original thread. Enough said.