Middle class people and Labour/Lib Dem voters are particularly disapproving of flag flyers

[EddyF]

Do you agree with this?

Class is a key distinction, with middle class people (those in the ABC1 social category) being more likely to disapprove of someone flying a flag than working class people (those in the C2DE category).

One third of middle class people (37%) disapprove of at least one of the flags listed being flown, compared to 23% of working class people.
The biggest difference comes over the English flag, which 30% of middle class people would judge someone negatively for flying compared to 16% of working class people.

Labour and Lib Dem voters are also much more likely to hold unfavourable views of those flying of England and UK flags than their Conservative counterparts.

Three in ten Labour voters (31%) and four in ten Lib Dem voters (42%) have an unfavourable view of someone flying the England flag. Among Conservative voters this figure is only 16%.
Likewise, 26% of Labour voters and 30% of Lib Dem voters have an unfavourable view of someone flying the Union Jack, compared to just 12% of Conservative voters.

I absolutely agree. Brexit taught me that I'd been living in a bubble, and I now make a lot of effort to consider why other people think and feel as they do.
I'm very aware that immigrants are no threat to me or my lifestyle. I'm financially okay and securely housed. That's far from the case for many people on the multi ethnic town where I worked, and to some degree I can understand why some people there feel the way they do, even if I disagree with them.

@Underthinker

I agree 100%. My feeling on how to achieve this is to not over react to flags, not call whole swathes of people racist, as these things just fuel the fire

I agree that kneejerk insults directed at harmless displays of patriotism are a bit of a red herring. Calling people "flag shaggers" etc is very childish and unhelpful.

But the racism and xenophobia in our society is much closer to the surface than it has been for decades and this hasn't happened in a vacuum or because the left made it so. The Tommy Robinson Unite the Kingdom march wasn't driven by the middle classes or the left.

I'm tired of seeing people blame "wokeism" for the rising levels of polarisation and anger in our society: it's a massive cop-out. The left hasn't always helped itself rhetorically, but just because the trans lobby lost the plot over biological sex doesn't mean that its "all the left's fault". I know you're not specifically making this argument but I see it trotted out so much on here at the moment and its rubbish.

Far right rhetoric and racism is the fault of the right, not the left or the middle classes. Let's call a spade a spade.

What makes me laugh is the number of middle class teachers and their teenage kids who call themselves middle class and ‘very liberal’ and anti Thatcher - also staunchly ‘Remain’ but when it comes to them / their kids actually mixing with - God Forbid - working class people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - as genuine equals no less !!!!!!!!! - they clutch their pearls and be like

🎶🎵🎶 Hell to the no no, to the no no no ..” 🎶🎵🎶

@SpottyAardvark Exactly, I find people congratulating themselves on how extremely kind and inclusive they are can often buy themselves out of situations. I have a handwringing acquaintance, his parents gave him a house in a suburb of North London and he works for an investment bank. He is extremely kind with his opinions because he can afford to be. Of course there are always outliers.

Seriously? I have never come across that. I'm (or rather, was) a middle class teacher, and my kids secondary school was pretty mixed. Both my kids' friendship groups were also pretty mixed. None of the parents appeared to police their children's friends.

Of course they are. Because they can’t think of any virtuous to signal for themselves so they have adopted this new cult whereby it’s ’kind’ and ‘progressive’ to hate anyone with common sense. You know, like looking after your own country and self interest.

Unfortunately OP, this forum is full of them. The far left do tend to be the loudest voices while everyone rolls their eyes at them.

I don’t disapprove of flag flyers. I disapprove of cretinous racists who hijack the national flag to intimidate and create an unwelcome atmosphere for anyone they don’t deem “British” (which largely means anyone who isn’t white).

They also look shit. Crappy plastic flags half way up lampposts. It’s not inspirational. It’s not patriotic. It’s littering, up a ladder.

I’ve no issue with anyone flying the national flag - someone round the corner has flown it in his garden for years, and it’s outside a couple of local pubs, and on the town hall. It’s a shame that decent people flying it are now clubbed in with the slow-of-thinking who think this is some kind of blow to the “woke” establishment.

Oh, and it’s usually flown upside down.

This.

we live in a ‘naice’ large village. Literally one house has flags up. A mile down the road, where it’s less affluent, there are flags on every lamppost.

And agree with @Gerranium
There are a couple of houses nearby who have always flown flags, one in particular changes their flag regularly. For things like the jubilee and coronation, and village events like the garden fete and children’s events the union flag often flies from the village maypole. But that’s different to a St George’s flag tied half way up a lamppost…

There’s academic education and then there’s real life education. People who are well off are more likely to live in nice areas untroubled by the effects of mass immigration, therefore it’s very easy for them to virtue signal from their comfortable village. I did health and social care at college and we had to debate things and it was ALWAYS the rich girls coming out with the most extreme “woke” opinions

And it's unsurprising that the middle classes are less likely to jump on bandwagons led by the likes of Tommy Robinson. In general, they're likely to be more educated and not see things in the same simplistic way

…..Or are keen on virtue signalling from afar, because the issues people have with hundreds of undocumented males being placed near them doesn’t affect those who live in the leafy suburbs. HMO’s aren’t likely to be next door to them!

I think polarisation is the fault of both poles.

People at each extreme will use examples of bad behaviour at the opposite end, and challenge those in the middle to denounce one side or be associated/complicit with it. It makes it hard for people to stay in the middle.

I have the luxury of being quite unbothered about immigration in either direction - on the issues themselves I don't have a strong opinion. But in these threads, I personally find the conduct of the left more irritating than I do the right, maybe that's on me and they are exposing some inner prejudice within me which I find uncomfortable, or maybe a lot of them are just dicks idk.

I’d like to see the source behind this and how rigorous the testing method was but sure, the stats wouldn’t surprise me if true. Left leaning educated people are less likely to be taken in by far right extremist views.

@OnlyFangs I don’t necessarily agree with that - I went back to my original birth town last year to meet a friend - midlands mining town - hadn’t been for 25 years - very much Reform and Lee Anderson territory - I think ‘what a dump’ would describe it well , an unfocused mess , stuff knocked down and nothing replacing it, all the pubs shut, market kind of non existent, lots of new retail parks on edges though and new dual carriageways - very flagshagging though and yet a suprising lack of many immigrants at all - a few Eastern Europeans and black guys around , but there always was - and it certainly didn’t dominate - it’s not remotely the same as going somewhere like Wolverhampton or Leicester and yet many of these predominantly white but kind of left behind places are actually the worst for this nationalistic nonsense and mainly aggressive steroid fuelled white mysoginistic men - I think its more about lack of decent paying manual jobs in many if these areas due to the demise of engineering, mining and all the various trades that went alongside it - a bit of part time at B£Q is the best many can hope for now and women tend to get the slightly better more admin type roles

The “cheap immigrant labour” is a red herring, an argument used by Farage and his ilk to whip up anti immigration rhetoric.

There is a labour shortage in the U.K. Currently there is a crisis within the construction industry, year on year the availability of site labour has reduced to the point we are paying more for site labourers than we are for construction professionals. Anybody who wants a job as a construction labourer will get one.

We’ve seen the same in agriculture, particularly when it comes to fruit harvesting.

The vast majority of immigrants come here on skilled visas. The unemployment rate for immigrants is higher than U.K. born population. The percentage of revenue lost to the treasury by off the books immigrants is far lower than the amount lost from U.K. born citizens doing “cash in hand” work.

Kevin from Hounslow with his 5 GCSEs has not lost his job to Ishak the consultant Neurologist, not matter what he thinks.

Okay but the working class is the largest socioeconomic group and is subsequently very diverse with varying political views and education levels. We're not all uneducated knuckle draggers.

For me I’m interested in why people have suddenly started putting up flags. If it was for the Queens jubilee, the coronation, the Lionness winning their match etc, I wouldn’t and haven’t had any concern. Great celebrate with flags. And tea and cake.

But to me the current epidemic of flag flying seems to have far more sinister undertones. There has undoubtedly been a rise in racism…. I’ve had 2 colleagues tell me about things that have happened to them recently which would have been unthinkable until the past year.

One is a petite well spoken Asian woman (born in the UK) who is a very well spoken lawyer. Has paid £££ in taxes over the years. She was accused of being “one of them illegals and told to fuck off back home”.

Another was a senior military commander. 25 years serving his country. Told to wash his face and called the P word. I honestly never knew where his parents came from - he looks Mediterranean, not that it should matter.

All the flag nonsense and related rhetoric has a consequence. And I find it sickening. And yes I’m middle class and usually a LibDem voter.

Sadly not around here.
FB is fecking awful.
Someone posts "Anyone know why the Cafe has shut down" and some dickwad will reply " probably the council shut it because it doesn't serve Halal meat". Or any report of a crime is instantly saying "bet their off the boats".

It’s not a red herring though. My DP is a plasterer, and has worked on sites for years. I would have no opinion if I didn’t have it from his POV.

There’s no ‘cheap immigrant labour’ axe to grind, just going off his experience, and wages fluctuations etc. he’s seen over the years.

E.g getting less for price work, companies only paying ‘x per metre’ now (I can’t remember the prices now, shows how much I listen).

He works a PAYE plastering role now, because it was so inconsistent

But funnily enough, because he’s not white, when he used to complain people didn’t just hand wave him away with ‘Farage’ ‘Tommy Robinson’ blah blah blah etc.

Yep and a new development is going up ( mainly private and expensive) and some Herbert will pipe up ‘no doubt full of people off the boats soon’- so you click on this charmer and it’s usually some bald, fat 60 odd year old geezer in a football top and all his posts on FB are about ‘the boats’ , Islam, anything a bit ‘woke’ - mixed in with a bit of football if you are lucky

Agree completely. Brexit made me realise I had been living in a sheltered middle class bubble, and while my values haven’t changed since then, my understanding of the perspectives of others who have been more affected by immigration & integration than me certainly have.

I don't know if I'm middle class or working class. I don't have a degree but have a well paid job in financial Services. I don't care if people want to fly flags on their own houses but I know what those flags tied to lamposts mean. That some racists don't want me, someone who immigrated to this country 25 years ago? or my husband who is the British born son of an immigrant black woman, in this country. I live 10 mins away from the Britannia hohotel in canary wharf so I know exactly who has put those flags up in our neighbourhood and what message they are trying to send.

Exactly. My polish builder who went back with Brexit had a masters in Archeology! He knew his stuff and had over 20 years experience. Every week in our paper we see a picture of a fat white British builder who has ripped off some old lady for her savings or never turned up to do the work after insisting on payment upfront. Seems to be happening more frequently since Brexit. They are not equivalent in terms of skill at all.

Ironically white people in working class areas with a lot of diversity /immigration did not vote for Brexit. In the main it was white ruralish areas.

Surely a big part is also that the sectors you mention, the 'middle classes' feel less threatened by immigration? They're not battling for social housing, low paying jobs, benefits etc, may well live in 'leafier' suburbs with less obvious multiculturalism etc...so can afford to be more 'generous' in spirit. But don't necessarily recognise their privilege so see it as racism/lack of