How to deal with the flag flying

[Slightyamusedandsilly]

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/176g9ybzKD/

This bloke has got it right! I'm going to order a bunch of other flags and put them on the local lamp posts that the neighbourhood racists are monopolising!

Projecting much ?

No, I'm not worried. This flag raising is very far from being Nazism and will blow over. However if the left keep calling everyone with a different view a fascist instead of taking on board other views or genuine concerns, divisions might increase.

I'm far more concerned about the hate I see on the far left. That is what is likely to drive me to leave the UK in the next few years and it says a lot when a Jewish person is far more afraid of the far left than the far right!

Nazism was far more than flag raising and Hitler youth camps. There was a sustained campaign of lies and rumours about Jewish people - who were very well integrated, and considered themselves Germans before anything - based purely on their ethnicity. Today that sustained campaign of lies comes from the left and Islamism. I see these lies every single day, along with now weekly physical attacks that are of no interest to mainstream media but if you follow Jewish news you are more aware.

While there are far right elements in British society I don't think we are in any danger of some kind of coup or serious riots. But people need to start remembering the ability to see other points of view and hear each other out without name calling, and since Brexit days, we seem, as a country, to have lost that ability Hostile elements (SWP, supporters of proscribed terror groups, Iran, Russia, far right) are able to stir things up purely because this division and name calling has become mainstream.

Yes good plan! Wasn’t at all tempted to do before but if irritates the frothers on here -good sport !

Maybe they just like flags. Maybe your hyping up what isn’t really as Earth Shattering as you fear it is.

I hope you are right.

Of course some of them are just chancers and don't really care.
Organiser of flag campaign was jailed over migrant smuggling plot https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15054789/organiser-campaign-flags-ailed-plot-smuggle-illegal-immigrants.html?ito=native_share_article-nativemenubutton

I didn't dismiss. I offered an alternative possible interpretation. The rest seems to be a whole lot of very defensive projection from you. I understand completely why people fear for their communities and their future, that they can feel pride and feel fear simultaneously, and that these can be exploited. Please don't ascribe meanings to my words that are simply not there.

All of the flags which had materialised on lamp posts in my area have been ripped down again. Just left little scraps of fabric.

I'm very very pleasantly surprised. Good outcome!

I live in a small seaside town and it can get really, really windy and we have had heavy rain in the past few days.

As a result the few flags that appeared on lampposts have started on their inevitable downward trajectory towards the pavement & just look ridiculous & tacky at this point.

Or they will end up being blown away and falling on someone's car which is not a great outcome...

These ‘views’ are flapping about in everyone’s face whether they like it or not! How is forced patriotism patriotic? Facists force their ideas on people and this is exactly what is happening here.

But you don't object to Pride flags flapping about in everyone's face. Or pedestrian crossings being painted Pride colours.

Why?

Sometimes you just need to be tolerant, and allow people to express a political opinion you disagree with.

Tower Hamlets raised the Palestinian flag over its Town Hall- indicating political support for a controversial political movement which a Jewish UK pp on here has said she finds intimidating. Not surprisingly: Jewish UK citizens have even been told to move away from those protests by the police for being 'visibly Jewish'. Many people also flyi the Palestinian flag individually.

The Pride flags were flown over Regent Street (the pictureI posted above) as well as many other buildings at the height of the TWAW political campaign - another very controversial, political one. It would be very disingenuous to pretend that' was just to display tolerance when people were arrested for expressing opposing views.

It's not OK to restrict only some citizens the freedom to express their political opinions - whilst allowing other people to push equally controversial political campaigns because you aapprove of them .

Which is what the wokies are trying to do.

Can't you see that it is that one-sidedness which is Fascist?

No - because there aren’t any apart from during Pride events which are organised and have permission . They are removed afterwards.

You know this is a completely different thing.

@strawberrybubblegum how on earth do you know any posters’ views on Pride or Palestine flags? I’ve posted on this thread about how uncomfortable the current spate of England flags makes me. As it happens I also agree with a Jewish PP (though I’m not Jewish myself) in finding the use of Palestinian flags threatening, and, as a gender-critical woman, strongly dislike the Pride progress flag. So there you go - maybe I am “threatened by flags” in general. But a repugnance for right-wind nationalism doesn’t imply a corresponding affinity for trans rights campaigning, or a particular view of the Middle East conflict. Why would it?

Perhaps given the abuse given to people expressing those views over the last few years, you should think more carefully about whether these flags are "right wing nationalism" or are simply expressing of a political view - which is similarly prohibited - but which this time you disagree with.

That's because those political campaigns have powerful support, so the flags are flown over public buildings. Whereas this current political campaign is grassroots, and doesn't have that power.

Let's not pretend that it's the location of the flags that people are getting upset about - that's really very disingenuous. It's the widespread expression of political view which isn't approved of which is causing such consternation.

It's not really the point though is it? If these people are so proud of the flag why are the painting it where people are going to drive/walk over it or hang out incorrectly? Most of these flags are dog whistles.

This is an interesting perspective actually, thank you. You’re right, that if say women’s suffrage colours had been displayed and trans rights activists were crying and feeling under threat; or if EU flags were offending those who voted to leave, I might have less sympathy. I do still feel the use of England flags to whip up patriotic fervour is playing into a view of Englishness that I find very worrying, and I think the whole movement is aggressive and disturbing. But you’ve made me think.

Indeed. If they’re simply harmless patriots, why the face coverings? If they’re proud of their country they shouldn’t be worried about showing their faces.

Another one of these?! 😬Surely people have to be getting bored now, talking about this, and repeating the same lines over and over, on thread after thread after thread about 'the flags?!' Hides thread immediately!

I feel like all the posters saying there’s nothing wrong with this, must be white people! The English flag was co-opted by racists in the 70’s this is not new. It’s either wilful ignorance or racism that would make you say anything else, it’s massively obvious this is the same behaviour as the Magas. English people raise a flag for an event of some kind normally something royal/sports, we have never been a nation of flags outside our houses, pledging to them etc, just like shouting about your religion is looked upon as being pretty weird… it’s loud and obnoxious and completely unnecessary. Neighbours that have flags up normally have either taken them down or replaced them with something else, so it’s really not just a flag.

It's great to be proud of your country's flag, whatever that flag is - English or Jamaican flag.
What I do t like is how the far right have seemed to taken over the English flag so if we fly it we are accused of being racist.
That's not OK, the English flag is for everyone who is English - has English passport/ nationality and lives or was born here.
The best way to reclaim it is for people like the man on the clip, assuming he is British with Jamaican heritage, to fly the cross of St George too.
If the English flag was routinely flown or displayed, like the Welsh, Irish or Scottish flag the racists wouldn't be able to claim it for their own.
PP called people who display the St Georges Cross fascist - this is why many English people are too scared or worried to display the English flags, if mosques, church's, temple, synagogues, public buildings and government /local authority building all flew the Cross of St George is would really help reclaim it.
I've just been to Cornwall and the cornish flag was everywhere, on carrier bags, boxes of fudge, outsise pubs, hotels, people's houses, on car bumpers etc.
My Mil lives in Wales and the Welsh flag is even more prevalent there, you literally can't walk 30 seconds down the road without seeing it.
We shouldn't be ashamed of our flag and should be able to fly it without being called a racist or a fascist.

I objected to both in some contexts. Technically that's not the pride flag it's the progress flag in the picture (in my opinion uglier graphic design wise). But plenty of people on here were critical and plenty of people mocking when those were everywhere. Personally I dont have a problem with Rainbow flags around the place during pride month - they brighten the place up, or with English/UK flags because of football or just because someone wants to fly it. It's nice. But both can and have been used to intimidatie or mark territory and thats just not... nice. I dont see the point of denying it. A "transperson peed her" sticker inside a ladies toilet cubicle or a flag tied outside a mosque are both meant to mean something regardless of your politics. Wide eyed "it's just a flag" is obviously disingenuous.

The Union flag is flown on many public buildings all year round.

London:

Central Government Buildings

Flown every day unless supplanted by another flag

Ceremonial Spaces

Flown prominently during significant state events

Buckingham Palace

Flown when monarch is not in residence

Parliament Square

Flown daily as part of a broader flag display

Local Councils / Other

Encouraged to fly daily, subject to planning rules

Bizarrely, yesterday in the supermarket I heard a conversation about flags being taken down! It was received as Anti British and there was a Rally being talked about. So once again, suppression adds fuel to the fire.