To be devasted the roundabout in my town has a crappy 'flag' painted on?

[Liesmorelies]

I nearly threw up when I saw it this morning - what a horrible shock.

It's a very small town in the Midlands near a city. Yes it's ex-mining but does reasonable ok now, not deprived eg no contextual offers for my dc for uni, but not massively desirable or trendy. Has a Labour MP now but hasn't always in recent years. Voted for Brexit but only just. In 2019 more people voted against Tories AND Brexit than for them - split the vote so we still got a Tory, but still.

In other words, I did not expect this. It's horrible - looks ugly and badly done even before you get started on the thinking behind it. AIBU to ring the council on Tuesday and ask when they are going to deal with this vandalism?

I did a four hour round-trip on the motorway today too and the amount of flags on bridges was shocking - just make it stop.

Get a grip. You felt sick over our national flag? It makes a change from seeing the Palestinian flag everywhere and I’m pro Palestine. The people who use the St George emblem as a passive aggressive symbol are no more representative of the majority of sane and reasonable British people of all ethnicities, than the child rapists & murderers that are used as an excuse for racism. Don’t let them hijack either the St George or Union flags, weaken the jingoistic narrative and reclaim them for symbols of national pride (like most other nations).

I have noticed the virtual signalling on benefits threads on here. I worked in a jobcentre for two years. Yes, we have our own home-grown lazy fuckers but there are many from overseas who have been granted settled status and do want to work. The highest numbers of culprits are from the Middle East. Happy to work 16 hours in a Middle-Eastern supermarket on the Uxbridge Road in West London. Their wives join them and spend their days drinking tea with friends and refuse to attend English classes. In the meantime they have large families. Thank God for the two-child rule! They complain about being dragged into the jobcentre for appointments. Your husband works 16 hours per week at minimum wage? We pay for a flat for you and you think you are contributing to society? The women used to beg me to sign applications for the half-price transport passes. I used to refuse.

I have posted how safe I now feel in our local groups and how I could walk alone at night now and how amazing it would be now the flags scared off all the brown rapists and please the white rapists got their victims back at long last. It didn't go down well.

I’ve been in Barcelona this summer. A tour guide at the Sagrada Família was explaining to us how St George is the patron saint of Catalonia and that April 23rd is a very special day. There are St George cross flags everywhere. They are patriotic and proud of their heritage. “Same as in England” he says, gesturing to me. I thought how sad that in my own country our flag is now something we’re supposed to be ashamed of, that our heritage is something we should deny and distance ourselves from. How sad and strange.

Get a grip OP. Maybe take a role as a work coach in your local jobcentre? It would expand your mind. Where is your husband in all this? Surely he should be handing you smelling salts and booking you into a spa hotel?

The irony of being othered.

That’s exactly what the flagshaggers are doing to the immigrant!

Poverty is very real and awful but immigration is not the cause of this. In fact immigration has a positive effect on our economy.

The real causes of poverty are complex and caused by many factors. Immigration is not one of them. And this campaign is all about a protest against immigration.

If the left didn't have such of a weird issue over their country's national flag (probably being the only country in the world to do so), the far right wouldn't be able to politicise/weaponise it in the first place.

I still remember Emily Thornberry's tweet from a few years ago, a photo of someone who'd got a St George's flag up outside their house. She was forced to resign because of how snobby it made her look...and still the left continues to hold this attitude. Why?

It's a flag.

I hope there are more painted. They have popped up in my south east town and I like them. Mainly because they make certain people horrified and dramatic.
most comments on Facebook are for them!

I have an issue with the st George flag precisely because the far right thugs appropriated it. Now it makes me cringe.

Surely people are allowed to put the flags of our county.
I like them and think no other flags should be allowed.
It cheers the place up and I see it as an expression of patriotism not racism.

Looks so tacky ,

Yes it’s a real shame we do not live in the 90s. Our country seemed so wonderful then and proud to be British.

Why do you keep asking about my husband? Weird. Do you have to ask yours for permission before posting? I'm divorced but I do have plenty of men amongst my family and friends who are pretty appalled by this.

I think our useless governments have created a Balkanised country with their mindless mass immigration with no integration demanded stance. Muslim areas such as Tower Hamlets have been displaying Palestine flags everywhere as a way marking their territory so some others have decided to do the same with English flags. The left wing middle class people on mn who live in very white wealthy areas know nothing about what is going on in some poorer areas and have no curiosity but like to mark their superiority by looking down on poor white (but never ethnic minority) people. I have noticed this since Brexit.

I don’t have an issue with the flag not one one bit! I have an issue with Yaxley Lennon using my flag for right wing propaganda
https://hopenothate.org.uk/2025/08/22/operation-raise-the-colours-organised-by-well-known-far-right-extremists/

So why were they not up before if such people were strong patriots?

No, the 90s was a great time, you need to think about what has happened since then to cause so much division.

But don't you see that a big part of the problem is the left telling people they shouldn't use the St George's flag because it makes you xenophobic etc that plays directly into the far right's hands? As does people throwing a hysterical wobbler over seeing their national flag?

I too was on a long journey today and saw flags on bridges. But it didn't make me 'nearly throw up' or any of the sort - because it's precisely that sort of language that makes the division between left and right worse. Reclaim the flag and treat it as ordinary, and it is no longer a symbol for the far right, it's just a flag.

Google why they have suddenly gone up en masse. The campaign is called Raise the Colours and is a coordinated campaign by the far right. It is intended to stoke division and as a protest against immigration.

Wonderful for men, not wonderful for women. Not wonderful for brown or black people either.

Have you ever been raped? Your comment is crass and virtual signalling.

IMO it's embarrassing, tacky, unnecessary, pointless and supported by (not all, but a lot of) the exact kind of people I choose to avoid in life.

REALLY hoping our village doesn't start with the flags and genuinely glad we don't have any roundabouts.

This is my philosophy

Not married. No kids. I was wondering how someone who got so upset about a painted flag managed to navigate life without someone to lean on!

Yes I have and my rapist was allowed to walk free because the justice system supports rapists (despite him confessing) and I was falsely accused, I was threatened, abused, had my property damaged as a result of reporting - by such people who are now shouting 'protect our women'. So I absolutely can say that, they are the ones who supported rapists and turned their backs on me and so when I see those people on my facebook pretending to 'protect women' I know it is bullshit and they do not give a shit about women or girls.