So what’s going on with all these flags around ?

[omj]

I hadn’t really noticed it until I went to see a friend who lives 30 minutes away and the flags were everywhere there but not in my area.

Then today I saw someone with a Union Jack flag hanging from their car window, like is usually done during the World Cup.

whats going on ? I have seen a few posts on social media it, but not really explaining what’s happening and why people are putting flags up all over the place.

Have you been out of the country? It’s been all over the news for weeks and there are multiple threads on MN about this already. Some people will tell you it’s for national pride, some will tell you it’s racist. No one will agree.

An outbreak of patriotism. Apparently. 🙄

Rugby World Cup

It's really really simple to Google if you've missed the news repeatedly for the last 3 weeks.

I’m in Scotland OP and haven’t noticed a thing, though I travel widely throughout for work.

I have however been assured by fellow MNetters that the Saltires are popping up everywhere (obv no-one here would fly the 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 unless they had an ACTUAL death wish).

And obv, though I haven’t seen any 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 or 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 in the wild of late, I still know what the issue is.

Countless threads about this already

You must have been living under a rock.

It's a display of racism/reform supporter "patriotism".

Basically vile people deciding to warn the world they're vile. Quite handy really. The one house in our village with flags out of every window came as no great surprise. The inhabitant is a vocal Reform supporter shouting about immigration at every possible opportunity.

Racists

The women's? Unlikely. Armies of pot-bellied, red-faced, beer-swilling Phil Mitchells draped in flags and dancing to Fit and You Know It aren't generally known for championing equality. The flags were certainly thin on the ground during the women's Euros.

Because everyone suddenly really, really loves our country! And who can blame them for feeling so very proud, after all it’s better than it’s ever been!

It has absolutely nothing to do with immigrants - or at least not the white ones. They’re okay. That’s not racist. We just have no room for brown people.

(yes, it’s sarcasm)

When they're Russian flags, start worrying. Until then, you can go back into hibernation.

According to an article today looking at one of the recent campaigns in our city "After introductions, the very first thing one of the men said without any prompting was: "It’s not racist. We’re just putting up flags to be patriotic.""

One of the organisers has a FB group where he's posted asking for others to get involved saying: “All prominent roads need to be addressed. This has nothing to do with racism, just bringing pride and colour to our city.” It continued: “Bristol unites against unvetted illegal immigration. Stop the Boats. Sort our borders out. Stop the rape of our women and children. Any help will be greatly appreciated.”

Strange how it's apparently just about being patriotic but they also directly link it to "the boats" and the supposed rape of women and girls. Even though most of the people arrested at anti-immigration far right protests here had prior convictions for domestic violence themselves.

Racism. Pure and simple. In Falkirk, a load of deluded people are claiming to be protecting our women and children by naming the one asylum seeker convicted of r*pe ( one is obviously too many) but not naming the dozens of white men in the last few years, some of whom are probably out and about now. They are attracting far right neo Nazis, national front, BNP etc to the town who like a good protest and covering the town with cheap flags. At least when you see the flags flying who know a racist lives there and to avoid them.

They are everywhere, I have personally removed three from public spaces in my area in the last few days. There has been a few houses putting up flags in response though, things like pride flags, Ukrainian and Palestinian flags and the flags of their home countries, such as India and Ghana, that weren’t there before.

The racists have also taken up graffiti, spraying red lines on white road signs and other things. They aren’t patriotic, they’re moronic and I’m over it.

I’m choosing to believe it is in support of women’s rugby, Quarter final England v Scotland 16:00 on Sunday.

So flags showing your sexual preference or deviance is fine, but your country's flag isn't.

Yes I emigrated from the UK many years ago and went back recently for the first time in 5 years....
The flags everywhere! I never used to see that before when I lived there.

It's worrying
on the one hand our local high street looks amazing decked out with the Union Flags all over the place as well as the council red white and blue bunting that was already up for summer. I can't remember ever seeing it look so lovely, it's at least one on every shop front - the holders were already up on the wall.
on the other hand, the men who did this pretended they were from the council whilst they were putting them up in the middle of the night. Obviously it's since transpired they weren't, so it's a group of so called "patriotic" stop the boats etc etc people behind this and I find that really concerning.

I fear Nazi Germany might have started in a similar way with people thinking how nice the flags looked...

Then you are choosing to ignore the blatant racism going on around you.

It's for the Fascist Day Out, happening today. Stay home. They're not famous for a distaste for violence.

they are advertising their enormous flat screen tv's

Thanks for this past OP I was also wondering the same thing last week.

They were not up around here when the Mumsnet posts first started asking this question.
I avoid the news as it’s too depressing
then the cheap union Jack’s started appearing on street lamps.

sadly, my recent reading suggests this is an outbreak of patriotism masking (unsuccessfully) racism

support for Reform really worries me. Many of these people are violent who only like the right kind of foreigner - white foreigners. Anti Brown and black people.

With Russia annnexing Ukraine.
reform here.

anti vaxxer / anti science in the White House

i do fear history Is repeating itself Are we seeing the build up to World War II all over again? Or will this all fizzle out? How do we move beyond the extreme patriotism / racism / support for Reform?

Round here they’re flying half mast.. says it all.
grateful for the rain washing the racist scribbles off the roundabouts

the union flags confuse me, the england flags i know how i feel about them, i dislike them with their racist connotations - national front - but the union flags are more nuanced, they are normally related to special royal events, and celebrations

It’s an outbreak of racism stirred up by the far right and aided and abetted by our entire media, the Labour leadership and apparently half of mumsnet.
How I long for the early 90s when it was blatantly obvious the BNP should be actively resisted by all sensible people.