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.

Genuine question- unless non-racist people feel like it’s ok to fly the flag, how do we UN-hijack it? Because this people who fly the flag are racist thing has been going on a long time. It’s become a self fulfilling prophecy. Surely the way to get it back is for normal non-racist people to fly the flag, demonstrating that normal, non-racist people fly the flag?

Yes but since this has been organised during the hotel burning and refugee intimidation protests, and the organisers have far right donors, its pretty clear the flag in this instance is a call to arms to protest immigration, not genuine national pride. If you try to reclaim it right now it looks more like nationalistic anti immigration and specifically Reform support rather than patriotic allotment and jam pride.

I can't see the problem with a flag next door. If I were viewing your house and I liked it, I would still put an offer in. I am very torn on the subject of flags. I feel we should be able to celebrate being English in the same way others celebrate their nationalities. However, l don't like the way the EDF types are using them as a political statement.

How rude. You don't know this man yet you use offensive terminology about him based on the only thing you know about him and that you disagree with him about. The last time I checked, we still live in a free country and if he wishes to display a large flag on his OWN property, he is perfectly at liberty to do so, whether or not strangers on the Internet agree with his choice.

That's really not what's happening though. It's an orchestrated campaign led by blatant racists.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16sFcfHxkB/

Sorry OP, but you’re going to lose some viewings.

No way would I want to live next door to a racist type as several members of my family are not white British. I would probably drive on past and not bother with the viewing.

It’s not new though is it. The old flag flyers are racist thing has been around for years. Six months ago, a year ago, a decade ago people were saying flag flyers are racist. Some people don’t want it to only be ok to fly a flag when there’s a bloody football tournament happening. My beautiful little village has flag bunting along the medieval high street and around our gorgeous old pub and corner shop next door (which- shock horror- is run by an Asian family), flying from the flagpoles at the church, the little flower bed and bit of lawn that passes for a village green and the cricket pavilion. Nothing whatsoever to do with immigration, it’s been there for months and it looks quite jolly (the bunting that is. The flagpole flags are there all the time). Someone on my road has one hanging from her house, they aren’t racist and again nothing to do with immigration, they put it up for the Euros and I think just never took it down, but then they’ve still got Halloween decorations round their porch as well.

Makes me sad and quite annoyed to think someone driving through our village or down my road would see them and assume that the residents who put them up are racist.

It's always fascinating seeing some people purposefully being dumb and obtuse

Neighbor decides to fly the flag, cool, no big deal

Oh look, far right bigots are asking people to fly the flag in protest

Well ain't that a coincidence? Surely the neighbor flying the flag at the exact time far right bigots ask for it is completely unrelated!

Really, it's pretty pathetic how some people twist themselves into a pretzel to try paint this as the neighbor just being patriotic when the actual cause is pretty likely

If you know the actual political climate right now then you know why many would really be putting their flags out with such perfectly coincidental timing

With means one of two things:

• some of you are clueless about the current political climate

• some of you know exactly what is really happening but are doing bad faith arguments to paint OP as being in the wrong for valid concerns

With the way some people talked here it's easy to notice some are the second option, twisting themselves into pretzels and doing fake outrage because they're too much of cowards to just openly say they support why many are showing their flags right now

But then again bigots are by nature cowards, always scared of something, always terrified and angry cause someone dares to be different :v

@KayleighhMum
Unfortunately this is a battle you can't win, your neighbor has the right to do that, all you can do is move on and hope for the best

All of this flag flying would be perfectly innocent if there was any sort of popular tradition of having a flag up outside your house in the UK. But there isn't. Maybe there's one eccentric old dear in your village who has always done it, and still her Charles and Di plates arranged in her dresser, but that's about it.

In some countries, everyone seems to have a flag. The US, obviously. And a lot of houses in the Netherlands have flagpoles; the tricolour flag most days, an orange pennant added on royal birthdays. And even Norway, the least jingoistic country in the world, has a load of flags on display.

But it is not a British tradition to have the national (UK or English) flag flying on or outside your house. Go back to the 1950s as that nice Mr Farage and his ilk would apparently like you to imagine doing, and see if you can find a Union Jack, let alone a cross of St George, in a picture of a residential neighbourhood (other than maybe on the bunting at a street party). I suspect this is probably because nobody needed to fly the flag to feel superior to everyone else ("after all, we're British, all that flag-waving nationalism stuff is for those hot-headed foreign johnnies"), but whatever.

To fly an St George flag right now, unless perhaps you are on the way to the stadium for the rugby, is a statement, and the statement is, essentially, "Brown people can all fuck off, especially Muslims".

Now I suppose it's juuuust possible that perhaps one or two of the people earlier in the thread who asked, all innocent-like, "Who could possibly object to a flag?", were actually doing that innocently. But if by any chance you are in that position, then please, take a hint and take the flag down, because the knuckle-draggers are going to think that you're a kindred spirit, and the rest of us are going to think that you are a bit of a c not a very nice person. Yes, it's sad that the flag has been hijacked by the racists, and maybe this will swing back at some point (I can remember a time when the Union Jack was mostly captured by the National Front, but since the London Olympics it's had quite a comeback), but for now, we have this useful tool for identifying morons.

(And in any case the rightful patron saint of England is Saint Edmund, who actually was English, unlike the usurper Saint George who never came near the place. Edmund's flag has a dragon on it, which is not only ironic but also much harder to draw on a mini-roundabout.)

Ok, I concede the oversimplification. perhaps it’s hard to say exactly who “invented” the slave trade. But it was Britain who systemised it on a mass scale and became the dominant slave trading nation (to feed their huge colonies) .

So, yeh, the point remains that these are the reasons why the English flag is not seen as harmless.

It would definitely put me off buying the house OP.

Why are there daily threads about flags at the moment though?

Of course he is perfectly entitled to do that.

And other people are perfectly entitled to think he is a tosser for doing so.

That's freedom for ya!

Why?

Well according to some here it's because some people are unpatriotic and hate their country

Definitely not because far right bigots are tainting the flag with their pathetic hate :v

People who think freedom protects their shitty opinion also thinks freedom protects them from being called out on their shitty opinions :v

Some people just doesn't seem to grasp that yes, they're free to be idiots, but by the same token we're free to call them idiots

Reminds me of bigots who whine about Freedom of Speech in the USA when there's consequences for their bigotry

It would definitely put me off buying the house OP.

Whatever people say, flags hanging out of windows has connotations of football hooliganism, yobs and chavs. It is what is is. And that was before the current pathetic nonsense with Reform and Far Right anti-immigration sentiment.

"a friendly man"
That's an assumption

"who is a good neighbour"
Another assumption

"This is well within the bounds of normal behaviour"
This is also an assumption, you don't know his normal behavior, does he always puts the flag? If not then what he did is not normal behavior at all

"regardless of mind reading and attempts to smear him from"
No attempt to mind reading, he doesn't exist in a vacuum so it makes suspicious he decides to put the flag when right wing bigots tell people to do so

"those who just cannot bear other points of view."
The other point of view in this case would be the neighbor supporting the right wing racist movement

Being a bigot is beyond just another point of view

Not even ONE SINGLE DECENT HUMAN BEING should bear bigotry in any form

Jesus disapprove

"Approaching him was over entitled and quite poor manners on your part, you should learn to respect other people's rights, privacy and boundaries particularly when they are doing absolutely nothing wrong."
And this part is actually fair, OP didn't realize this was a battle she couldn't win and she doesn't really have any winning argument

It's his house and you can't make him really. My Son lives in a city and everywhere someone has a flag up! I don't think it will put everyone off .you say no previous issues .so just let it go

Yeah it would definitely put me off as a prospective buyer.

I admit I forgot she said that, so yeah my mistake, but that doesn't change my other two points:

"This is well within the bounds of normal behaviour"
That you don't know if him putting the flag is his normal behavior

"regardless of mind reading and attempts to smear him from those who just cannot bear other points of view."
That nobody tried to read his mind and are simply pointing out the timing is sus and his reason would be supporting the right wing bigots

Bigotry which is not just "other point of view"

"that means you have nothing worth reading to add to the discussion."
Objectively wrong, me saying something wrong doesn't invalidate what else I said

Sounds more like you just can't give an argument so you want to disregard everything else cause it's easier :v

A few years ago, we purchased a house with a large union jack on the house that was one door away. As a brown person and from a small ethnic minority I was a little bit concerned but it has been fine.

However, in today's climate, I would be more wary. I don't think it would put me off from buying the house if I really loved it. I would just ask the sellers what the neighbours on both sides are generally like.

This!! You put this perfectly

I would not ask again. neighbour has made stance clear.

I wouldn't even look at the house if the neighbour has the flag up but given the current climate, I bet there are many who aren't out off so may be a none issue.