Neighbour has put up huge Unite the Kingdom flag

[UrticaDioca]

I am gutted. I haven't seen a single flag in my town, and suddenly this union jack goes up two doors over with the words 'Unite the Kingdom' printed on it in capital letters. The flag is huge and flying from a pole on top of their shed, but it's in their own garden so nothing can be done.

I am the daughter of an immigrant mother and therefore mixed race. Now I have to see this fucking flag waving at me every time I look out of my kitchen or living room windows.

Yeah NO. It means understanding that our colonial past has consequences. That persecuted people have the right to claim asylum. And that if you were in a country destroyed by war or famine you'd try to get to somewhere safe too.

It also means understanding that this bullshit is neo-fascism which benefits none of us. And that it makes British people of colour unsafe on our streets.

So fuck off with your ignorance.

Either everyone has a right to protest or no one does.

Given that one of the co-founders of the raise the colours had been arrested for racially aggravated assault, another has been charge with murder AND 21% of 949 people arrested for taking part in the Stockport "protests" have been since reported for crimes associated with domestic violence, what exactly are British culture and values you think your side are championing?

I don't have a 'side'. Violent men unfortunately come in all shades of political opinion.

I'm just pissed off at people with concerns at the recent massive and unprecedented levels of immigration being dismissed as 'racist'. I now think anybody not 'racist' cares as little about the concerns of ordinary people in this country as anybody who's not 'transphobic' cares about ordinary women.

Disagreeing with what Isreal are doing to Palestine doesn't automatically make you antisematic. You talk about "soloidarity" with the Jewish community, but what about the entire race that is being wiped out by Isreal... why aren't people equally as disgusted by this??

"You can carry on making all the assumptions that you like, but some of us are as horrified by antisemitism as we are by any other form of racism." What Isreal are doing to Palestine is also rasist. It's a form of Genocide.

The flag has been taken and turned into a symbol that is racist. "unite the kingdom" is a racist movement.

I want nothing to do with Britian if this is what we are. The far right need to f**k off ASAP

The problem is this: "I'm just pissed off at people with concerns at the recent massive and unprecedented levels of immigration being dismissed as 'racist'"

It's not massive or unprecedented, the media have done an AMAZING job of convinsing us that this is the problem, and the country is f*ed because of this.... it's not true. Labour have massively reduced the number of boats since they've been in power, but you don't see it reported in the news because that then goes againt the rhetoric that it's labours fault the country is on it's arse... not 14 years of tory mis-managment.

I know for most it is about the concern of immagration, and not a race issue, but flying a flag with "unite the kingdom" (a racist far-right campaign, set up by a racist white man) makes you racist by association.

My NDN has two flags, one at the front and one in the back garden. I know it is not general patriotism, he is a massive racist. If he put a “unite the kingdom” flag up I would not be able to stand it and would ask him (probably via his wife) to take it down.

I have enjoyed all the England flags put up for the football with the racism disclaimers on them. E.g “support football, not Farage”.

This graph from the House of Commons Library shows the 'Boris Wave'.
I would call that massive and unprecedented immigration.

The rate of immigration has now gone down, but the people who entered the country are still here.

Try again:

I would say that graph clearly shows that the method of counting immigration and emigration has an impact on the net numbers.

The Boris wave was entirely down to brexit.

Boris campained for brexit - promising us more money for the nhs and more control over our borders.... unfortunately both of these promises were lies.

While we were part of the EU other contries had a responsibility to take in a lot of immagrants, and France worked with the UK to police the small boats.

Now we've left the EU it has reduced our control over the boats crossing...

Brexit fundamentally altered UK immigration by ending free movement with the EU, which drastically reduced European migration but resulted in an overall increase in net migration due to a surge in arrivals from outside the EU.

I’ve read this stated about fifty million times. What is the actual point.

The point is that all these people hanging racist flags and complaining about the "unprecedented immigration" are probably the same people who voted for Brexit and got us into this mess in the first place ...

But if we had done Brexit properly we would all be millionaires and we would have no foreigners and no foreign laws, foreign goods, foreign foods and foreign companies.

Yes such bliss. Only white English speaking people with pedigrees of a few generations. Union jacks everywhere. Everyone so happy and knowing their place.

I am sorry but we fly are flag with pride in our country. If this offends you and you don't feel part of this country then it's a you problem

"A flag can't be racist" yes obviously true but there's more to it than that. Stone Island clothing wasn't created as a symbol of violence, but if I see some half cut geezer wearing Stone Island looking at me sideways, I know better than to engage. It's like the people who ask me (as I have a Pakistani name), why is the P word offensive as it's just short for Pakistani, or why is swastika offensive, it's just an ancient Hindu symbol. If those words and symbols were mainly used for those purposes then they wouldn't be.

Flags during sports events, on jubilees and other national celebrations, at state events etc were normal when I was growing up. Never bothered me, had an England flag during football tournaments as a kid, and my children had flags for Queen's jubilee. Random people in America with a US flag waving somewhere in their front yard, never bothered me as it's part of the culture.

But if my next door neighbour here started flying a flag randomly and putting it on lampposts and painting it on zebra crossings - I know from his other conversations that his motivation isn't just positive national pride and what the flag represents changes with how it's used. (He hasn't actually done this but supports it).

And yet we get on ok day to day, he's like "nothing against you mate, you're alright it's the others" and he'd be the first one to help me out if I need something, as people now seem to have almost infinite capacity to separate their actual interactions with real people from their prejudices about whole groups.

There is nothing inherently racist about a flag, but it can become representative of something if used often enough for it.

Use of 'are' rather than 'our' makes me assume this is goady rather than genuine. Amusing if not, of course.

I was born in the UK. My parents and all my grandparents were born in the UK. I love colourful bunting every time it's strung over our roads. We have different bunting for each celebration.
😍

I also know what flags on lampposts mean. It's not cute, it's not cheery. It's dogs' piss. Marking territory on lampposts.

Yeah if you ain’t not speaking English gooder then your not English and shud go back to yore country.

I'm pretty sure it is.

What seems to stoke the flames is that the people most offended by the flag are also often the types who look the other way and bury their collective heads in the sand when we see things like middle eastern rape culture raising its ugly head in this country.

If 1200 European women had been sexually assaulted in one night by straight white males they'd have been up in arms. But even mentioning this is often deemed 'racist'.

Is your snobbery here on show for any reason? Or just for sneering and to let us know you are unpleasant?

When the country finally goes to shit these same people will be angrily proclaiming that the rich need to be taxed to bail everyone out. Well, actually, they're already doing it.

What you'll never see is them acknowledging that this is an issue which we actually have influence over as a country. I have a Polish workmate and she can't believe the state of this country. In Poland, legally resident foreigners only make up 5% of the population. However, critically their humanitarian migrants are a net asset rather than loss.

If we look at Ukrainian migrants they contributed over 5x more in taxes paid than they received in public benefits and social aid last year. 75% of working age Ukrainians are employed and the figure is around 90% for those that arrived before the war. By contrast, I don't think we even have a 30% employment rate for humanitarian migrants and are spending a lot of money on them while they continue to be massively overrepresented in crime stats. And I'd question how much tax is even paid by those working given that every hand car wash or Turkish barber I've ever been in wanted paid in cash.

I'd wager this is at least part of it. I don't believe it's 'because Ukrainians have light skin' like we always hear from the hard left. Even ethnic brits are sick of it. There's been an ongoing petition to close down the migrant hotel next to one of our worksites. It's led by the Pakistani/Sikh shopkeepers who are losing business by people avoiding that street. The main contractor have also had to stop sending female engineers due to sexual harassment/fears for their safety as the site entrance is right by the steps where the men sit all day smoking.

If 1200 European women had been sexually assaulted in one night by straight white males they'd have been up in arms

they probably are, you know. And yet these flaggers never seem to be too worried about the violence against women and girls perpetrated by their own demographic, do they?

OK, give me just one recent example where 1200 European women have been sexually assaulted in public by western men. Even an example where 600 were assaulted.