To think England flags are intimidating?

[Nikki7506]

Let me start by saying I LOVE MY COUNTRY!🥰🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿
I am an Army veteran. I fly a tonne of flags for St Georges Day, major sporting tournaments, Royal occasions because I love the monarchy!! I'm the only person on my street who bothers to get the flags and bunting out, although, there is one other house on the next road who does too👍
Woke up one morning to find England flags all the way down the street. They were well high up on the lamp posts. I couldn't reach them so I complained to the council. I feel like I'm living in an EDL rally. The council finally sent an email saying they had removed the flags but they hadn't. They were still there.
So I decided to fly two pride flags from the lamp posts opposite my house. Before the end of the day an angry GAMMON 😡 ripped them down with such vigour I thought he might have a heart attack.
It made me really sad because to me the pride flag is a symbol of acceptance and kindness to everyone LGTBQ+, disabilities and everyone who is neither white nor English!!🏳️‍🌈
So I have to look at their flags (and its not the flag, the reason they're flying them is because Nigel wants everyone to hate immigrants and they are happy to use the England flag as a dog whistle ) but I can't fly mine😡
Am I being too upset by this? I'm seriously thinking of using a water gun with food dye in it. We have a diverse community here💖 The other day a man said hello to me in mandarin with his little toddler on his shoulders and it was lovely🌈 I don't just want to cut my neighbours loose and keep quiet😔 they are lovely people who deserve respect.
This feels like a Trump/Farage takeover😡
This sudden display of patriotism (Flag shagging) from folks who don't normally bother is a worry😬

No offence but you don’t type like someone who has served in the armed forces op 😬. Did you make that bit up?
I agree though that the flags are awful.

People should be allowed to fly their own countries flags.

Yes there a few idiots who use them maliciously but a flag itself isn't meant to be racist. It annoys me it has been turned into that.

I've seen many other people fly Palestine flags here or their own countries flags within this country. Are they intimidating and racist too? Do they signal, only certain people welcome?

Don't let it become a them and us situation. We don't have to fall into that trap.

I don't find the flag more offensive than Spanish flags in Spain and French flags in France, etc. However, as others have said, it isn't usually customary to fly the English or British flag on a routine basis. If genuinely flown, it's fine and perhaps it should be as it's something that prevails in other countries. If they are being flown for underlying anti immigration or anti immigrant reasons then it's passively aggressive and unacceptable.

FWIW we fly the Yorkshire flag on our boat and at our home in France. Just little ones. I think I'll order one for our home here 😀

Flying flags of any kind seems to be divisive. I'm fed up of seeing Palestine flags everywhere. We are not Palestine.

Ahhhh, the daily England flag bashing thread. I was wondering what time it would pop up. As you were. 😎

And before anyone starts, I'm not a racist apologist or a racist myself.

I just don't buy into a one way narrative.

You have a right to display an LGBT flag and they can have their flag too.

If they rip them down, put them back up out of reach.

Nah, fly more of them. Reclaim the flags from the gammons and the racists, and let flags be flags. Other countries fly their flags, why can't we? If everyone has a national flag flying, it stops looking like an EDL rally, and just looks like England.

Anyway, St George is a poor choice for England's patron saint. We should have Thomas Becket or at a push, go back to St Edmund Martyr. At least they were both English!

Yeah this. Most Palestine flags being flown, are being flown by people who couldn't even point Palestine out on a map.

And you don’t understand why people might be flying them? If I look out the window of this room, I can see a hospital where 30 children from Gaza are being treated for burns and other injuries sustained from bombing.

Yabu to fly the pride flag.

Thanks! I needed a good laugh this morning! 😅

Yes it’s ridiculous. These repeated flag hating threads.

The flags suddenly appeared on every lamp post on the main roads in my area. I'm not white but I am British and it didn't really bother me. What did irk me was the vandalism on the roundabouts and spray painting the flags on street signs. It looks terrible, why are people doing that?

Rattle can is cheaper than a flag?

Erm, how are former military supposed to sound??🤣 and can you not love your country without hating reform wankers??🤣 I'm a former Signaller and I trained at Bassingbourne before they closed it down and put libian migrants in there💖

I think also because they take videos of this vandalism to post on their social media. Somebody even spray painted it on a zebra crossing! Just awful.

Agree. It’s aggressive and intimidating and it’s meant to be. It’s aggressive in other countries too. I don’t see what to do about it, because the reaction to even making comments about it is aggressive (as seen on this thread).

I’m with Billy Bragg in wanting to reclaim the flag from people who are using it to intimidate, to use it instead as a sign of welcome and a reminder to be open, but at the moment I don’t even want to do that.

Isn't it "nee how"?

I totally agree with you. It is a far right thing saying immigrants not welcome and has nothing to do with pride in our nation. Nobody proud of their country would hang flags half-mast or upside down. It is Reform driven - a party led by someone who screams patriotism and then goes to another country to slag off Britain. It is part of our sad, sick, divided country and we should all be utterly ashamed that we have allowed our fellow humans to be manipulated into hate and blame culture.

Any flag is intimidating when it's flown for the reason the St George flag is being flown for now.
The Saltire is in danger of being hijacked too.

Surely damaging them feeds their rhetoric?

Local to me someone went round and took them loads down and wore a fake lanyard and told people they were from the council, I know via work it was not the council.

DH and I actually commented yesterday driving home there's haven't been any new ones since the first flush and they are gradually fading or coming down. Ignoring them is the best course of action I think in this case. Not the opinions behind them they can be challenged in other ways

@PermanentTemporary I think the way to do this is to proudly use it when appropriate, during a jubilee, or a big sporting event, Eurovision etc. None of the people flying them now had them up during the women's euros!

Surely the answer to all this flag nonsense is for every single person to drape the England flag in their home. This will completely neitralise all negative connotations as well as reclaiming its meaning?