To ask if you agree with ‘the flag flyers’

[Gobbledygook123]

Plus if you’re also educated and at least middle income?

The only people I know personally that agree with Farage et al are from working class backgrounds and/or are generally not educated higher than GCSE level.

Granted this is quite a small snapshot but this includes friends of friends, acquaintances etc so wondering if my perception of the ‘typical Farage voter’ is correct or skewed.

I’m an immigrant who’s spent my whole adult life in the UK, and I genuinely love the Union Jack. I think It’s one of the best-designed flags in the world. It’s frustrating that it’s been hijacked by racists. Maybe if more people proudly and casually display it, we can reclaim it and take away that power.

That said, some of the flag displays in my town are questionable. People put them up on lamp posts without a tall enough ladder, so now we’ve got flags at half mast all over the place 🤦‍♀️

Degree & professional qualification and I love seeing them. It lifts my spirits no end.

I see it as us reclaiming our flags from the far right who effectively stole them from the nation years ago.

Interesting.

In our area it is the far right putting them up so I can't see any reclaiming if it.

I find the slur throwing people the most worrying: I don’t recall seeing such class snobbery before. ‘ thick gammon’? People speaking that way clearly arent educated in any meaningful sense of the word, the derision is very ugly.

My highest qualification is a NVQ level 3, but I also hold a professional qualification and have to be on a register in order to do my job. And I sadly earn below the national average (despite working 40hr/wk).

I am also from a very underprivileged background, and grew up in poverty.

But I definitely don't agree with the flag-shaggers. Their motive is racist and fascist.

The majority of the current ‘flag flyers’ (the ones using cheap cable ties on lampposts and painting mini roundabouts) couldn’t give a shit when the Lionesses won the Euros. They couldn’t give a shit when it was the King’s coronation. They don’t give a shit about the current women’s rugby. They don’t really care about their communities. They don’t donate to food banks. They don’t engage with local councillors and MPs. They don’t attend community meetings. They don’t volunteer or get involved with local charities. They cry “help our own first” but they’re the first to sneer at the homeless people we have on our streets and call them “druggies”.

My local town has recently been flagged. They look awful. Cheap nasty, flimsy material flags, tied with cheap cable ties half way up lampposts. If anyone challenges them for their reasons on the local Facebook group their response is “lefty cunt”. They are knuckle-dragging embarrassments.

I love to see flags flying, as in France. We shouldn’t surrender our national flags to any one political group. It might take an effort to do that but it’s worth it.

I'm not a Farage supporter but neither am I comfortable with dismissing and despising sections of the population and deciding they must be thick and uneducated.

I have a BA, an MA and a professional qualification from the time when degrees were degrees, if we’re going to be unpleasantly snobbish on this thread.

Bachelor degree & retired on about 37k. Totally agree with the flaggers

Working class (grew up in deep poverty), educated in the autodidactic tradition of the working class and now in the process of obtaining a degree in midlife. I've no time for the flag shagging. I've no time for the 'protect our women' garbage. They're an absolute scourge.

Regardless - the dragon is pretty - the geometric patterns are not

Are racist zenophobes poorly educated? Yes, usually.
its horrifying seeing 1930s fascism being recycled again.

I believe ignoring the opinions of a huge percentage of the population is a huge risk. No 'intelligent' person saw Brexit coming or Trump winning a second election, and look what happened. Working class people are struggling and the opinions of 'normal' people are being ignored.

Flags aren't aways a Farage support symbol, or negative. I was driving through Hillingdon today (West London) and noticed a huge amount of flags flying from almost every lamppost it felt like . Googling it showed that they were thete to celebrate Battle of Britain day, which is officially 15th September, but the Battle itself was September and October, and there is a big RAF museum and 2 RAF bases in the area, so it's strongly linked. The flags represented an event where brave armed forces fought for our freedom as a country and won, saving us from a fate far worse than Farage.

To answer the original question - I'm educated and absolutely don't support Farage. But to not acknowledge he is a very real threat is dangerous. And to not try to genuinely understand why people would vote for him and write off anyone who does so as extremely stupid isn't going to stop them. Labour need to make very real, positive differences to people's lives, and fast. I had such high hopes last May, and have been so dissapointed. If Reform do get in I will be placing the blame squarely with Labour.

So do I!

Political stuff apart, I think the Union Jack is one of the most striking flag designs in the world.

I’m patriotic and whatever Farage or Reform do, I’m not letting them ‘own’ our national flags.

Xenophobes

This 100%.

It’s incredibly dangerous, thick and stupid (to pick up on OP’s criteria 🙄) to dismiss what large numbers of people are concerned about. You may think they are wrong but their concerns need to be addressed and they need to be reassured. Anything else would be political suicide for the government and very dangerous for the country as a whole. Farage is where he is because these worries have been dismissed too flippantly in the past.

Are you a journalist?

Sadly all the RG degrees and middle class credentials won't change the fact that mass migration impacts more on those who have less and live in towns that are unrecognisable from where they grew up. There'll be a big swing to Reform at the next election unless the current government gets at grip on the situation and that looks unlikely to happen.

I see you’ve altered your original thread. Enough said.

I don’t think about it. Flag flying is completely alien to my personality, so alien that I can’t even spend the psychological space to form an opinion. People can do what they want.

In what way?

Nope not a journalist. Be an interesting profession but not my bag

Very odd that the initial post has been confused slightly.

Education level, Class level (be it Working or Middle backgrounds) and Wealth are not necessarily related or mutually exclusive.

Not sure I’ve mentioned an opinion of my own background, experience or family but the post was simply due to the fact that in my personal experience it is those (not all it would appear from MN) in my case that appear to be either working class, less educated or both that support the flag flyers/Farage politics.

This includes my wealthy, albeit uneducated and working class side of the family and friends, friends of friends/acquaintances. Whereas any middle class (reasonable income) but educated and all have different politics both left and right, of family, friends, acquaintances etc are incredibly anti. Like I said this is based on my own snapshot to see if this was true to MN also.

I think if their flag is on a flagpole or potentially in a window on a house then I could buy into this flag business being about patriotism.
I think though when people are out after dark wearing balaclavas with their ladders tying them to lampposts it’s clear they have an agenda that is nothing to do with patriotism. I have witnessed this happening. If they’re so patriotic why are they wearing balaclavas to hide their identity?

im educated to GCSE level and i live in social housing But if you read some of my threads you will see i write well and am articulate despite only being educated to GCSE level. Working class background Parents owned own house and i fucking hate Farage. Hes a grade A arsehole. Im also half Italian and Brexit affected this nationality too.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-46836957