I took down some flags and DH wasn’t happy

[LittleChopper]

On my commute today, I noticed someone had hung three large St George flags on a bridge coming out of our village. They have been popping up everywhere but this particular instance I thought “I’m not having that”. On the way home I pulled over and took them down.

when I got home and DH asked why I was binning three large flags I told him and he.. had some interesting opinions. He told me I shouldn’t be pissing off people in the village, that they have every right to hang an England flag in England, and that I’m being too political.

For a start, I would argue that I’ve always been quite strongly opinionated so he shouldn’t be surprised I did it.

Just as others have the right to their opinion I have mine. We have people in the village who are migrants… why should they have to look at that. It’s clear why they were hanging there given what’s going on at the moment and I’ve never see a flag hanging in the village in the decade we’ve been here so why else would they be there now.

I’m just so disappointed with it all. With the UK, with DH.

Next time maybe I’ll add to the collection instead. 🇬🇷🇮🇪🇮🇳🇦🇫🇧🇸🇵🇰🇪🇸🇸🇩🇿🇦🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

It doesn't matter if there were 100 or 200k people dawdling through London droning moronic chants like "Tommy Tommy Tommy Robinson."

London is a global city of 12 million people, drawn from all corners of the world, and we know that multiculturalism is our strength. There is a march about something every weekend. If people feel the need to trudge to hear the great minds of Katie Hopkins and Ant Middleton, knock yourselves out.

I despair of the people pretending its just a flag. We all know what is going on and its awful and terrifying. Noticed last night when driving through a village I dont go to often that some numpty has spray painted a roundabout and crossing with red crosses. I felt like going back and spraying over them.

We have a lot of flags on our housing estate and DP and I debate them all the time

DP was born in an overseas UK territory country although lived here legitimately for years and is not white British. His family are not white British. He has experienced racism all his life and the flags make him feel uncomfortable and feel very in your face about how strongly people feel about migrants and often very poorly informed about what immigration actually is, especially for those who legitimately moved to the UK and contribute to society.

At the same time we respect people’s right to protest or have their opinion out there so we would not take the flags down.

I do not support or agree with why people are hanging flags up but I respect people’s opinions on the matter and right to speak up (my main concern is misinformation).

I don’t really think people should be touching private property or defacing public property for any reason it’s not right.

I hate the flags for political reasons and find them racist, but I refrain from touching them as to avoid being a hypocrite

however IMO these flags look like fucking shit in all honestly and a total trashy eyesore. None of them match in size or pattern and they aren’t put up with any any care or attention, not hung up correctly, uneven and damp, dirty, wonky and half fallen off. They make places look rough as hell which makes it worse. I don’t want my nice area that I live (that I pay a fucking service charge to maintain) to look like a badly thought out political campaign that threw up cheap tat from Temu or spray paint. I don’t want my council tax to have to be put towards clean up operations for vandalism. If you want to decorate your own property in trash, go ahead but I can’t abide this

IMO the visual awfulness of this scene portrays us as a nation of racist idiotic vandals and ill informed morons. If that is what people want others to think of them then, mission accomplished

People are entitled to fly the flag of their own country. Full stop. Some will be racists, just as some people who don't fly the flag of their own country will be racists.

But every single person in the United Kingdom is 100 percent entitled to fly the flag of their own country. And this will not stop, so you are going to have to come to terms with it.

You can choose to pretend to believe they are all racists and get upset which will only cause issues for you, or fly the English/Scottish/Welsh/British (as appropriate) flag yourself with pride, or just ignore people peacefully going about their own business. Those are your options.

https://youtube.com/shorts/2e93GB4w-v4?si=2WTDHYQRzB8uZL-S

This woman, Andrea Jenkins, is Reform's latest gift to the world. Mad as a brush. Even I'd show up to witness this one.

@Whatsallthisthen2025 not really though is it, because it’s not like people are just hanging these up in their own houses and on their own property (so we can identify who is a moron) they are hanging them from property they do not own, which has no right to be there. It’s just plain fly tipping and vandalism

If you want a flag on your house and car then you can do that, but stop hanging them up in public places.

Stop being dim here. Most of us are aware that the current flying of the Palestinian flag is supporting terrorists, AKA Hamas. We see the uneducated and unwashed waving these around in London every week trying to intimidate Jewish people. We even have them where I live flying them at traffic lights trying to get money to fund their terrorist friends. It's the UK and people should not be condoning terrorist sympathisers flying flags whilst trying to ban people flying our own national flag. Dont like people flying our flag? That's just too bad I'm afraid.....

You can choose to pretend to believe they are all racists and get upset which will only cause issues for you, or fly the English/Scottish/Welsh/British (as appropriate) flag yourself with pride, or just ignore people peacefully going about their own business. Those are your options.

Well, if your theory is correct, why the sudden proliferation? Yes, there have always been flags around. But the explosion of them, and the defacing of crossings, roundabouts, etc is new. And no one can pretend there are not racist undertones. Or that the intention is peaceful.

I believe in immigration control. But this is making for a very hostile environment for anyone who is black or brown, many of whom are British or here legally, doing jobs that keep the UK going.

You are disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

Yeah...'F' stands for Freedom, it's what Britain brags about, if you can't afford your dinner you are 'Free' to go without !

Fly a flag on your property if you like.

Draping a flag in a public place is illegal fly-tipping.

Spraying a red cross on a mini-roundabout is illegal graffitiing.

Of course people are entitled to fly the flag of their country, on their own property. Nobody is arguing otherwise.

If they choose to fly flags on lampposts or paint them on roundabouts, then they will need to accept that others may take them down or paint over them.

People are entitled to judge and criticise those who fly the flag as part of a racist campaign. This will not stop, so you are going to have to come to terms with it.

You can choose to pretend that a blatantly racist campaign is not racist or you can own it for what it is. You could even reflect on your actions and learn. Those are your options.

Disclaimer: we all know that the third option is highly unlikely, but we live in hope.

Exactly. And people who want to vandalise, fly-tip and intimidate people within their own communities are not community minded. I can guarantee very few of the flag-hangers does a single positive thing to actually help their own community, eg litter picks, volunteer work and so on.

Also they need to stop deluding themselves that they're 'flying' the flag. Illegally dangling it off a motorway bridge or attaching it to a lamppost is not 'flying' the flag. It's just low-level vandalism. And it makes the place look cheap and tacky.

Multiculturalism is quite obviously not a strength.

Repeating this ad nauseam don’t make it true, and people don’t believe you. They know it’s not true. They know it’s a lie. Look around you, look at this discussion - have you ever seen more division among people in this country? If it were truly a strength, these problems wouldn’t exist.

You can’t expect people to swallow these trite phrases anymore and reject the evidence of their own eyes and ears.

I'm not doing anything.

I suggest you get out of your smug little bubble and talk to some `ordinary people', if you know any and attempt to find out why their is frustration with this awful government. If a bit of national pride cheers people up, why not.

And you haven't explained why you find your own flag so offensive when you don't have a problem with other nationalities celebrating theirs.

They aren't entitled to take over public spaces, though, are they? They aren't entitled to make our towns over as they see fit, using infrastructure we call pay for as props for broadcasting their views.

Spraying grafitti is also 'peaceful', but it is not ok.

You're wrong though. I live in a multicultural community and everyone has the same problems really, brown, white or Black. They've all not really got enough money and are worried about potholes, poor schools etc. Culturally there are obviously some differences - but not really. They're minor in the scheme of things.

Some people blame multiculturalism for all their woes because it's easier than a) accepting that the system is rigged against everyone apart from the ruling classes and b) taking accountability for their own failings.

‘People are entitled to judge and criticise those who fly the flag as part of a racist campaign.’

So we should judge all those who fly the English flag in England as racist, en masse? Got it.

When illegal migrants are raping young women and girls, I guess by your logic we’re entitled to judge them all en masse too.

Why do British people not want to retain your British-ness? Why are you all so happy to embrace multiculturalism to the extent that it obliterates your national identity?

I am happy to accept immigration but not to the level in which it overrides our own national identity. Bollocks to it being the strength of the UK. It will be its end and you will all have to go and visit the natural history museum one day to remember what your villages and cities looked like prior to this.

There should be tolerance for all but firstly a respect for our way of life much like you would behave if you visited a neighbours home, as a guest!

'This awful government' has been in power a year. They haven't had time to make much difference one way or another. The economy they inherited was a right mess.

Stop believing everything you read in the Daily Mail and try working stuff out for yourself.

Exactly. Suicidal empathy at work.

Do you want a pat on the back OP? Is this your way of letting us know how 'progressive' and cool and enlightened you are? Look at me, I'm so cool and progressive that I stand up to my bigoted husband. People are flying England flags not out of aggressive nationalism but in defence. They can feel their national identity being destroyed around them, and when they complain not only are they told to shut up they're told to 'celebrate'. Nobody voted for mass immigration or multiculturalism. They have been imposed on us by the spiteful, destructive, hate-filled left.

You and your little supporters on this thread better pray there is never another war OP. If Putin and China ever launch an invasion of Europe, then you'll get the flags out. You'll be waving the Union Jack and St George with all your might and begging the 'gammons' to go and defend you. Well, I wouldn't blame them if they told you to get lost. Who the hell is going to fight for a country that hates itself, has completely lost its identity and doesn't even want to wave its own flag? Now you are going to blab on about embracing a "progressive new identity". Let me save you the bother. You can go and fight for that new identity, because I won't be.

They’ve had more than enough time. They just don’t want to make the difficult decisions that need to be made, being ideologically opposed to them.

This is such a crazy take.

Do you know what 150,000 people look like . Of course you don't.

How many people here?

Or here?

Or here?

Speaking for myself, my national identity is a mix - Welsh, Scottish, Dutch and African. (I am white btw). I do identify as British (I was born here and my mother is British), but not just British.

This is really common as we're a nation of mongrels, essentially. How do you decide who is British and who isn't? Do you have to be able to trace your family back to the Doomsday book? (Which I can do, on my mother's side, as she's from a very old family. But my dad was African).

You don't get to define everyone or decide their national identity. Sorry.

I think you'll find that I didn't say that i judge everyone who flies the English flag. I do judge those who are very obviously jumping on board the racist bandwagon.

As for judging migrants on masse for the crimes of a few, no, it obviously isn't OK, but it happens constantly.