The council should be taking down England flags in public places?

[fourfoxsakes]

I have driven through a couple of areas in the last few days where England flags are being displayed on public lamp posts, it makes me feel very uncomfortable and unwelcome in the area and I think gosh I’m glad I don’t live here, but why are the council not taking them down?

All you get when you ask this is 'oh but it's the INTENT behind it! It's OK if it's just an England flag on a flagpole - or if there is an English tournament going on etc etc... ' 🙄

Yet, these same posters (before all this 'raise the flag' stuff,) bashed and berated ANY English flag, and anyone who flew one, waaaaay before that. With 'flag-shagger,' and 'bigot,' and 'thick racist' type of comments littered amongst the comment somewhere!'

They'll deny it of course. But we all know it's true.

No, it would only provide the nutters with an excuse to say "you can't even put an English flag up these days"

Your response, doesn’t read very well, but I think you’re saying there’s a problem when racists put up the flag because they want to deport anyone who doesn’t look like them?

Yes, I agree with you, that some people are racist and would therefore want to deport other people who don’t look like them. But you can’t surely be accusing every single person who chooses to put up an England flag or Union Jack up as racist? That’s a very big generalisation to make.

I'm in Ireland, I do take with issue with the tricolour being flown at the moment, as it is with the same intent here as in UK. Racist, divisive, exclusionary, and right wing.

I think this is whats driving a lot of people to put up the flags. They are fed up of being made to feel ashamed of the flag, and the UK’s history (colonialism etc.), so are putting up flags in defiance of that. Those on the left are then retorting by labelling the flag bearers as being thick, knuckle-dragging racists. It’s all very tit-for-tat.

I am sorry you struggle with reading comprehension.

If you reread what i posted, you will see that I said that there are many occasions when people will fly a national flag to celebrate or support a national team or event.

But those who fly a national flag in response to a racist, anti-immigration rally are probably using the flag to express a racist, anti-immigration point of view.

I hope that clarifies and you can understand the point I am making?

How would you feel if people labelled the Irish flag as racist and right-wing? If you see the Union Jack as a racist symbol, what do you think we should do about it? Replace it with a new flag? Find some way to reclaim it from the racists?

I don't think anyone has a problem flying a flag. It is a multi coloured piece of fabric.

But there is a huge difference in message between flying a flag to support, for example, your national team at the Olympics, and flying the same flag in response to a racist call to assert a simplistic view of national identity.

And I agree with you 100% about that. What I’m not happy about, is the labelling of every single person who chooses to fly an England flag, or Union Jack flag, as a racist.

I do label the Irish flag as racist, when it is flown with racist intent, as it is now all over dublin. At a football match etc, fine.

You realise that flags and how they are displayed carries a lot of symbolism? Flying a flag short of the top of the pole should only be done as a salute (when two naval ships pass one another for example), or when in mourning.

Again, you'd never see this sloppyness in the US.

I'd quite like to move to Switzerland - their flag is a big plus.

How can you tell the intent of those who put up the flags? Are you a mind reader?

For the millionth time this thread:

There is nothing wrong with the St George’s Cross flying from proper flagpoles with the permission of the property owner.

A bunch of cheap polyester flags from Temu cable-tied halfway down a row of lampposts looks shit. It's disrespectful to our national flag. You wouldn't see this in Spain, nor in the US.

Oh so what. Just don't look at them. Honestly this is getting really old. People can do what they want within the law.

The irony of Birmingham CC being the first to take the flags down, bearing in mind the lack of bin men. I'm assuming with them it's therefore not untidiness that meant they were complaining. It's because they don't approve of the nations flag.

A quick check of their social media accounts usually provides a clue.

Do you think that a group of 30 year old men wearing balaclavas cable-tying some polyester flags to lampposts in the middle of the night (in between swigging from cans of lager) following a campaign by Yaxley-Lennon are more or less lilely to be racist than the Verger of the parish church that has flown one from its tower for hundreds of years?

So if M&S or John Lewis for example, decided to add wooden flag poles with optional choice of England or Union Jack flag attachments for people to purchase and put up outside their homes, you wouldn’t have a problem with this?

Everyone knows their intent. And we all know it, including you.

Oh don't be so ridiculous. The flags are being flown throughout England.

Context is usually quite clear, whatever the innocents might try to insist.
There's a bloke near me who's been flying a flag, normally but not exclusively a Union Jack or England flag, since he moved there 15 years ago or more. Since all this business took off, he's removed it and the flagpole stands bare. Now I can't read his mind any more than I can that of any individual who has independently decided that now is the time to climb up a lamppost and attach a flag to it, but it seems to me that that's as much a statement as any the cable tie gang are trying to make.

Given that they're not acting within the law, they can't do what they want. You need the permission of the property owner for a start.

Yes, I'd have far less issue if it were done properly. Sloppy presentation does lower the tone of the place. The current activities are just as bad as littering, flyposting and graffiti.

So every single one of them has exactly the same intent. Ok then 🙄

They aren't breaking the law. A lot of councils are very patriotic and support their own country. So they are happy to keep the flags up.

What's happening in your own country? Are the flags being taken down or left up? (I haven't read your comments in detail so apologies if you aren't actually Irish).

Yes, I agree with you on that point.