House viewings - neighbour refuses to take down flag

[KayleighhMum]

Our house is up for sale and we have viewings commencing from tomorrow - 7 in total lined up over the course of the week.

Our neighbour hung a large England flag from his top window on Friday and it has remained up. DH saw him outside the front on Saturday and politely asked if he could take it down before Tuesday. He basically laughed and said if any prospective new neighbour dislikes the flag then they won’t be the sort of person he’d want living next to him. It remains up now.

I am concerned this would be off putting, but speaking to my mum earlier she thinks I am over thinking things and it wouldn’t make a difference if someone likes the house.

Do you think we should try and ask again or would you assume it shouldn’t put people off? We are semi detached so it will definitely be noticed.

No prior issues with this neighbour who has always been friendly etc.

You see I don't get this. I'd happily live next to a Tory, Libdem, Labour or Green supporter because their political views are unlikely to harm me. But if someone is racist, it's like poison.

Between ages 10 and 18 I lived on a council estate in NW London which was all white (and this was near Ladbroke Grove... which was... strange. But back then, and possibly now, Kensington Council zoned their estates. You lived in a better one if you were white. I know this because my dad worked for RBKC council). The estate was rife with National Front and British Movement supporters who regularly told me and my family that when the NF got in we'd be deported back to Scotland. They hated EVERYBODY. Everybody who wasn't English, and even then apparently you could only be pure English if you were English for at least three generations. They hated Irish and Welsh people too and they really, really hated black people. Growing up surrounded by that toxic racism was hideous. The constant drip of evil bigotry rotted your soul - and we are white. They used to openly "Zeig Heil" in the youth club and on the street. Some of them had actual swastikas tattooed on their hands I cannot imagine how it would feel to have that surrounding you if you were from an ethnic minority. I moved away and really thought that level of hatred and racism had - not gone, I'm not that naive - but had certainly been suppressed and was seen as shameful.

Brexit seemed to make it ok for some people to feel emboldened to be openly racist and it has steadily got so much worse, peaking last year at the Farage riots and this year with bigots painting roundabouts and hanging English flags. Notice it's always English flags, because these people do not really care about the union. It's "Engerland for the Engerlish." The rise in this level of hatred horrifies and terrifies me. As it should anyone who cares for a society where everyone is treated equally, regardless of their ethnicity or colour of their skin.

If someone has recently hung an English flag in the last week or so then I'm going to have a very visceral reaction to that because of my teenage years spent among people who saw the English flag as a proud exclamation of their racism. I have a happy mixed race family (my husband is Indian) I would never again want to live amongst people like that.

If it was during the football world cup or a coronation, I wouldn't bat an eyelid.

If it was up at this moment now, it would seriously put me off buying your house.

I agree... Some people don't half love to spout drivel on here sometimes don't they? 🙄

You can tell your not Scottish

Fwiw we were all in it together the fact that a lot of Americans identify as Irish Americans shows you who colonised America

It's time to stop pretending the English are the only ones who were problematic in the past and present the whole fucking world can be an issue I'm tired of where I was born being seen as an issue because a couple of hundred years ago netflix wasn't a thing and we conquered a large chunk of the world

"I came i saw i feel really bad about it" 🙄

How about "i know what my ancestors did not because I was taught about it at school but because I googled it but as I'm currently not in possession of a time machine I can do absolutely fuck all about it and I refuse to bleed for the past that I have no control over"

did he know you were doing a viewing? do you think he is being racist? ie trying to put off people not english?

This, this this! If people don't like our beautiful flag, go and live somewhere where they aren't proud of their country...oh wait ...

Yeah - given the timing he's more than likely a racist prick. I'd give your house a swerve as a potential buyer.

As a BAME woman who had Union Jack bunting up for the Jubilee, I would not buy a house next to someone like your neighbour.

Yep this. ^ It's really about time people stopped. It was 100s of years ago! It's honestly white noise to me now when people spout this. English people alive now can do NOTHING about things that happened 100s of years in the past, so why keep bringing it up? I'm not apologising, or taking accountability for something I didn't do. No-one should have to.

Oddly, it seems to be largely ENGLISH people who do it. 🤔 Bashing the English is terribly fashionable, especially by the far left, and especially if they're English themselves. It's quite bizarre. I don't know any other nation who does this. (To their own people!)

White working class culture is a legitimate culture within our society. It was, until recently, the majority culture in the UK. Patriotism, the queen, the flag, the army, football, these are emblems of pride for them. It might be looked down on by the intelligentsia, but these values were what took us through two world wars.

I'm white working class. My grandad fought against fascism in one of those wars. His values were not being openly racist. He'd be fucking horrified at what's happening in the name of patriotism in the country at the moment. It's nationalism and we all know where extreme nationalism heads if not stopped.

I'm afraid it would put me off. I know not everyone flying an England or UK flag is a racist piece of shit, but I think a Venn diagram of racist fuckwits and flag-flyers would show a pretty significant overlap.

I wouldn't go and view a property with a flag-flying neighbour, or in an area where lots of homes had them, far less consider buying one.

It wouldn't make me think "racist"... it would make me think "scum" ... and I wouldn't get out of the car to view your house I'm afraid. It really is chavvy!!!

Well, a St-George flag wouldn’t have put me off buying a house last week, but following the countless threads on MN, clearly I should be petrified that I’m living next to a right wing nut who has the time to attend protests and scream at non white people.

Ok, I’m being a tiny bit facetious but I’m not English born and when I came here 20 years ago, I most certainly not have immigrated here if it resembled what it is today.

My bingo card is almost full right now. Eyes down......👀

Sorry I should probably add that I came here because I thought it was on par with my own country. No one immigrates to a ‘lesser’ country. Now it’s just racist, really expensive and very little enjoyment in life. I worked and paid my taxes so I feel I did my bit. Probably more than those springing up flags.

It would put me off enough not to make an offer. However I’m sure there will be plenty of people who will feel happy about it so I wouldn’t worry.

You can, in the current climate, confidently state that people who display England flags don't care whether they make others feel unwelcome, 'other', alienated or unsafe.

That's not exactly the same as being racist - but it's, you know, racist-adjacent. People who care about not being seen as racist don't do it.

Not sure why you thinks others displaying flags are treated more leniently? The news is literally full of people being arrested for displaying the Palestinian flag, for example.

Ugh. I'd not even cross the threshold if I went to view a house with neighbours like that - especially as you've added their nice pleasant Reform tendencies. It's one of the things that stops us moving to North Norfolk. Beautiful little villages with the St George's flags on every second house

You’ve asked politely and he’s said no. I wouldn’t ask again, he’s more likely to just add more flags. No one likes being told what to do.

I think I would be put off if I viewed a house with an England flag on display NOT because I don’t think people should display their country’s flag, but because I think it’s been used historically by groups like the National Front and the BNP, which has given the flag a negative association for some. This has been compounded by the more recent co-opting and use of it by the far right.

The Lionesses and other organisations have made some inroads with reclaiming the flag, expressing pride in Englishness, contributing to destigmatising the flag in sport and other areas of life, promoting the flag as a unifying symbol rather than one aligned with exclusion. But I think those campaigns have a long way to go.

People may well be wary of living close to someone who might hold right wing views. The flip side could be that you get a potential buyer attracted by it, because they hold similar views. So it could work either ways. I don’t think you’ll gain anything by pushing your neighbour. Concentrate on making your house as attractive as you can to buyers. Focus on what you can influence and not what’s out of your control. Good luck!

I understood this campaign began because the racist anti-Britain council in Birmingham took down the flags of its country (total disrespect imo) and ordinary British people were angry and frustrated that it seems we can fly flags from every country in the world, but not apparently ours.

Just think, had Birmingham Council not disrespected the British flags and just left them alone, they would not have awakened British patriotism, and none of this would have happened.

Spot on, @Nottodaythankyou123 .

A flag in the window wouldn't put me off, but a flagpole in the garden would. They make a horrible noise that can keep you awake at night as even if the flag isn't flying the pole creaks and groans all night especially when it's windy. We lived behind a camping & caravan site some years ago and the noise from that damn flagpole drove me mad.

I feel so sorry for the numerous English people who are ashamed of their national flag. I'm Welsh and so proud of our lovely dragon. Best flag in the world 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

I get that but in England it’s been hijacked by the far right - I haven’t met anyone displaying it that isn’t a bigot, sadly. We’re a much more multicultural society here than in Greece and people want to divide us.