To think this takes top place as the most tacky 'flag' example?!!

[TempNameForObviousReasons]

For those of you who think the flags and roundabout paintings are tacky...

What do you make of this house?

😳😳😳

But it HAS been co-opted by the far right? It’s naive (at best) to say otherwise. Sometimes things get ruined by a minority and I think this is one of those occasions. It’s been allowed to go on for too long and runs too deep. We’re not alone, other countries have complicated histories with flags too it just is what it is.

I think it’s mostly still widely accepted in a sporting context. Outside of that, where do you feel it is needed? What does it represent to you?

If I think of something unifying that represents England I’m much more likely to think of the NHS, David Attenborough or cup of tea. I’d rather shed the baggage of the flag and celebrate the things I actually like and value about this country.

I think this would be cool as an art piece and people would get on board with it. But it’s effectively creating a new flag rather than changing the meaning of the old one.

No the flag isn’t intrinsically racist it’s just some shapes on a bit of material, but the purpose of a flag is that it’s a representation of something. But I think focusing on claiming our flag back from racists is like cleaning the windows on a burning house. My concern is more around how we’ve got to where we are, where can we go from here and is there a way to navigate this shitstorm that makes England a better, more unified place.

Very true, @koolkatxx , but I'm afraid the racist far right have a history of this that goes back for over 50 years.

This is from 1973. Mostly Union flags, but there are a few St Georges in the background on the r/h side.

I'm ancient, and I was involved in counter protests back then. For many years, I lived within a mile of a property that had been owned by one of the NFs founders, and was used as a "nationalist bookshop" selling all sorts of fascist propaganda and, guess what, the outside was painted with a massive union flag. (It later turned out to be used as a "safe house" for far-right Italian fascists who were wanted for terrorist offences in Italy.)

There was a racist murder a mile further up the road, where a group of far-right skinheads pulled a young black teen off his moped and stabbed him to death. A little further away, a group of football "fans" violently assaulted an Asian couple and left one of them with life-changing injuries. We avoided going shopping on days when there were home games unless we went very early, because it wasn't safe.

For my generation, what is happening now is reminiscent of those times, and we don't want to go back there.

ETA: sorry the image I pasted seems to have disappeared, and I can't find where I got it from now, but anyone who cares to google images of the National Front in the 1970s will find numerous similar ones.

But would you buy the house next door?

I remember that time well. Things seemed to have improved but now ...

Quick check suggests Wessex is a gold wyvern on red. We could perhaps go back to St. Edmund as patron saint? Nicer flag.

That looks like the coronation in c. 1953. 😄 I like flags in general, though.

I'd knock on the door and see what the deal is 🤷🏼. Easy for me to say, though, cos I'm white so a knuckle-dragging Yaxleyite isn't going to take issue with me. At least not until I start running my mouth off lol

That said...bad people live in plain houses too. Really bad, awful, dangerous people. If we assume the house in question is occupied by a moron it just means they are that - an ignorant moron.

I cannot answer for how a black or Asian or any non-white Brit or immigrant might feel & it would be offensive of me to assume. I'd hazard a guess at bloody uncomfortable in the current climate

Totally agree & for clarity, I really did mean just as a counter movement to current shitshow. There are 3 options -

1- tear the flags down - appearing to prove 'their' point & tacitly admitting there's a problem with the flag itself.

2 - ignore it & hope it goes away - cementing the flag as a racist dogwhistle & leaving our non-white English folk & legal immigrants feeling unsafe & unwelcome

3 - short term prettified flag with the aim of drowning out the nonsense while our gov try & work out what to do about dangerous, desperate & deadly boat crossings.

A petition to reinstate St Edmund was submitted to Parliament in 2006 but was rejected by the Government

Another campaign was launched in 2013 with the backing of Greene King Brewery,

Sadly I was unaware of each of these at the time

https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Edmund-original-Patron-Saint-of-England/

I did consider flooding the place with, pirate flags, Disney flags, county flags, flags of all nations etc as a counter protest but I'm not actually willing to spend my time and money doing this. The big winners in this latest fad must be Temu and the like flogging cheap flags.

Thank you, a voice of reason.

According to some on MN, English people should be deeply ashamed of our flag because of our role in the slave trade hundreds of years ago and the wealth this created during the Industrial Revolution. This wealth, ofcourse, was created and enjoyed by a small minority of industrialists. The factory workers labouring in appalling conditions certainly didn't benefit; nor the farm labourers working on the land or the small trades people. But it seems we are all to self flagellate as a penance for ever more.

The fact that slavery existed all over the world at that time - and in some countries still does - is apparently irrelevant. As is the fact that England (together with the rest of Britain) waged a lengthy diplomatic and naval campaign to end it. English people were also captured in large numbers along the west coast and enslaved by Muslim Barbary pirates, a part of our history that is conveniently overlooked.

In summary, English people should be made to feel deeply ashamed for something that the ancestors of the vast majority had absolutely no involvement with - (and mine certainly didn't) - and something that occurred centuries ago.

In addition, a minority of far right idiots hijacked the St George's for their own political ends and English people passively allowed them to. Big mistake. So now the flag - according to some - is forever tainted with racist connotations. Long story short, we can just about get away with flying the flag during a rugby or football tournament but at all other times not without an onslaught of criticism, most of it from fellow English people😒

It’s one way to lower house prices in an area!

Or down a toilet preferably 💩

Well done to everyone taking part 😳🙄

And doing what, exactly? What do they deserve a clap on the back for precisely? Other than sticking up a flag that they bloody well know will make non white people uncomfortable?

Strangely the telly has contrived to find a shedload of Londoners - all of colour, at least two stating that they are immigrants and they think well of England - who like the flags and see nothing wrong with flying them. Gosh.

Okay, I'll bite...

Why would someone who isn't white feel uncomfortable about the English flag being displayed and why on earth would it matter? Their prejudices may well make the person with the flag feel uncomfortable and should certainly not override the right to display a national flag. Imagine if an English person went to Belize or somewhere and started complaining about their national flag being displayed. They'd rightly be given short shrift.

Non-white English people exist. And some of those people may feel uncomfortable with it. There are also white English people who feel that way. It’s not all about foreigners.

Again, so what? Why would someone claiming offence outweigh the right to display your own country's flag? And I never assumed the colour of the person displaying the flag, you did that. One skin colour does not invalidate the rights of another of course, this isn't top trumps.

K i suppose that’s ok then and I’ll tell some nonwhite people I know (including a few immigrants) it’s all ok. Nothing to see. Phew

I didn’t assume that, I actually didn’t mention the person displaying the flag? I mentioned the person who may feel uncomfortable about it.

Literally no one is stopping you from displaying a flag if you wish to so not quite sure why you’re getting your knickers in a twist about your country and your rights. But just because you can do something doesn’t mean everyone will support it.

If you don’t understand why some people don’t support it then read the full thread (or other similar threads, news articles or footage) you’ll find lots of reasons given. If these reasons don’t resonate with you then I’m not sure what would.

So? People are allowed to display their own country's flag. The person claiming offence doesn't change that.

‘Their own’?
England also has the usual quota of gay people, bi, trans etc. They aren’t mutually exclusive you know.

I don't display any flags myself. My daughter has a Taylor Swift flag in her room if that counts?

It also doesn't matter whether (general) you support it, no more than it matters if you support buying Branston beans over Tesco own brand. As for the reasons, they basically boil down to only thick lower-class plebby people have flags and we're far too busy displaying our credentials as fancy, pseudo-intellectual middle-class chatterers who have the Right™️ opinions to do anything like that but we'll still invent some brown people who we'll use as excuse to guilt others into doing what we want. If someone has a flag, it's fine. I probably won't like the plants that (general) you picked for your front garden, I'm not going to start threads complaining how declasse they are. There's a lot to be said for myob and live and let live (yes I know this is AIBU).

That house is chavtastic. The whole flag thing is cringe.

“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” Samuel Johnson