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.

Lucy Connolly showed us that speech can land UK citizens in jail; seems people are turning to the medium of art in order to express themselves. Actually, in the scheme of what’s going on in the world, I find it hard to get worked up about these flags.

As an England football fan (who follows them home and away), I have always had a small George Cross in my window and whenever England play, I have a few flags. All my neighbours love it and tell me that they always know when England are playing, due to my flags. During the Euro’s a few years ago, a roundabout was painted as a George Cross and was actually celebrated by our local press. It made a nice change because there have been times in the past when people just assume you are right wing or racist for flying a George Cross or Union Flag (stop calling it a Union Jack please). Never seems to be an issue when the Welsh or Scottish fly a flag though.

However, I’ll be thinking twice about it in the current climate, as my flag has very different connotations at the moment. Feels like it’s been taken over by a load of right wing knuckle draggers and then it gives the dramatic lefties the opportunity to call everyone racist and xenophobic and start slagging the English off.

However, I do think that the OP is completely over the top and dramatic. I can think of things that really make me want to throw up - war, murder, child abuse, homeless people dying, rape etc. It’s a bit of paint on a roundabout for goodness sake. How do you cope with day to day life if a bit of paint has affected you that badly?

Didn’t surprise me that you are Welsh. Every opportunity to have a little dig at the English eh? My Mum is Welsh and I lived in the S.Wales valleys for a while. Generally nice people, but I came across far more xenophobic, racist, insular, knuckle draggers in the Valleys that anywhere I have lived in England.

You might find others feel it is wonderful to celebrate our country. My village has lots of bunting and flags, and attracts thousands and thousands of visitors every year. It is British through and through. Some/most people are proud of their nationality here, the independent businesses are thriving.

I really doubt these people pay council tax.

I just think it’s funny that all the yobs worship a flag commemorating a man born in a land now known as Turkey

You should work on your resilience

I inadvertently found myself on the fringes of a flag protest last week. Mainly white blokes with load of teens wizzing round with balaclavas on. There were some women and some teen girls hanging out together but the vibe was very male larger drinker. They were a sad but also belligerent reminder of the failure of governments to support the working class. The one thing that wasn’t even slightly in evidence was pride.

I inadvertently found myself on the fringes of a flag protest last week. Mainly white blokes with load of teens wizzing round with balaclavas on. There were some women and some teen girls hanging out together but the vibe was very male larger drinker. They were a sad but also belligerent reminder of the failure of governments to support the working class. The one thing that wasn’t even slightly in evidence was pride.

The people doing this are so thick. They are exactly the reason why many don't want to fly the English Cross or "celebrate" being English, after all who, in their right mind, would ever want to be associated with ignorant, racist oiks?

Yeah like that's what it's about 🙄

In my area they are doing it and then openly trying to bait the police into arresting them so they can be 'political prisoners'. It's beyond depressing that grown men are behaving this way.

Wasn’t that just stop oil and BLM? I don’t think any Marxist groups are connected with this. It’s just people putting up England flags and Union Jacks.

If someone was holding a flag of Wales, Scotland, France, America or any where else in the world that's ok but to fly the George Cross is seen as rascist.
I am proud to be British and English as much as the other countries are of theirs.
I believe in free speech yet again it's ok for others but not for the English.

'Devastated' - really?
Almost threw up?
Grips >>>>

I live in a very multicultural area and close to one of the most deprived boroughs in England. I don’t live in a bubble. I’m not ignorant.

I do understand why some people are frustrated. England is crippled economically. Far far too many people are living in poverty. Waiting for housing has to be one of the hardest things to do. I know that in that situation a person does look around and wonder why others might be getting homes first. And they look for someone easy to blame.

The thing is it’s not about ‘the immigrants took it first. The immigrants cost too much” it’s about a system that doesn’t work due to bad planning and from years of a stagnanting economy and also there not being enough affordable housing for everyone. There just aren’t enough homes being built or funded. That is a series of political decisions over the years. It’s shit yes. But it’s not immigration.

Frustration is being directed at the immigrants but it should be directed elsewhere. To your local MP for a start. To the government. To local councils. The immigrant is a convenient scapegoat made up by the media and these far right idiots whooping everyone up.

Fact is immigration help to keep things running in this country. I know this doesn’t fit the far rights agenda to divide and whoop people up, but it’s fact.

Oh just stop.

You know exactly what this is about and it's not fucking bunting.

I’m glad you recognise that this country was celebrated for its tolerance and rejection of jingoism.
Now take a breath and ask yourself why that may have changed…

I despise racism and acknowledge that racists are now being allowed to hide in plain sight during these anti-immigration protests, but there are a lot of good people who now feel pushed beyond their limits of tolerance.

We are a small island. Our infrastructure is creaking under the weight of our population now - can’t get doctors appointments, don’t have enough police officers, the NHS is on its knees, school places are no longer guaranteed to be local, we have a huge housing crisis, our prisons are full etc.
Having a population growing at the speed that it is is unsustainable; net immigration is off the scale.

People want the government to act, and protest is the only way of achieving that. It seems that they are now being heard by Starmer, but what will be done? There is a chronic lack of confidence in the will and/or ability of our elected representatives to tackle the matter in any sort of timely manner.

Your ire is being misdirected. Blame successive governments for not anticipating the outcome of their policy failures and lack of investment. If this country was otherwise in good shape, there would be no protests and the George Cross manufacturers would be churning out bunting for summer fetes instead.

Hell of a lot of new users on this thread MNHQ.

This is going to be a difficult post to express, but I remember racism back in the 1970s. It was downright nasty behaviour towards hard-working, peaceful West Indian/Indian people in my area, just because of the colour of their skin.

What is now described as "racism" seems, to me, to be genuine fear of accelerating social changes that are completely out of control and have resulted in traumatised communities. I don't know what the solution is, but I can understand the frustration and helplessness behind some of the protests.

Palestinian flags are everywhere at the moment, and their message is (at best) ambiguous and often threatening. They have been used to intimidate the tiny Jewish population in our country, and paraded proudly in the streets in the immediate aftermath of 7 Oct 2023 with chants of "From the river to the sea" which has a very specific and sinister meaning.

Pride flags are also all over the place, including whole buses painted with them, and again their meaning is unclear now that the whole thing has been hijacked by loony groups. I used to smile when I saw a Pride flag; now my heart sinks, not quite knowing what it's supposed to represent.

It's possible that the England flags are a clumsy way of insisting that we restore our own traditional values to society, somehow. The UK has been enriched by past immigration, and is progressive in accommodating individual freedoms, but it's foolish to deny that something's gone very wrong in recent years.

This is quite an interesting video, which I watched with curiosity and confusion. God knows how this is all going to play out.

Why do you doubt ‘these people’ pay council tax? Who do you think ‘these people’ are?

I think the people engaged in the flag initiative are trying to show politicians their frustration. I’m sure they understand that change needs to come from decision-making at Westminster.

Could be worse OP. I’ve got Robert Jenrick as my MP and he’s forever shimmying up lampposts to hang flags round this way, when he’s not sorting out Tube fare dodgers or holding back immigrants on the beaches of France of course…….mind you it proved he does actually know where his constituency is, which I was fairly doubtful about.

I agree it's terrifying, but it's being done to scare you and embolden people who now feel very comfortable being racist.

This thread is so repulsive that its impossible for me to make a comment without being banned. Yet as thats part of the purpose of the organised far right infiltration of MN I'll attempt to remain. Look at the polling on here MNers; wtf?

He was Cappadocian Greek