to be seriously concerned about the illegal surveillance cameras and flags on lamp posts?

[Kije]

That's it, really. I live in a semi-rural area. No racial tensions locally, that I'm aware of, at all. The local small market town and surrounding roads are covered, and I do mean covered, in illegally posted flags, all over lamp posts - sometimes three deep. They come down (the local council sometimes stirs themselves to take them down) and are replaced within a few hours. It's been like this since late last summer.

And now the same charming people who are trying to intimidate what they like to call 'pathetic lefties' have put up dozens of surveillance cameras on the same lamp posts, aimed in all directions in a clear attempt to intimidate local people who'd like to take the flags down. The mob who do the flags have said on their own FB site, it's to 'protect their property' (eg the flags they've illegally stuck up lamp posts, it's essentially littering). The obvious take-home is, they think this is their town and they aim to create a chilling effect for anyone who dares to discuss this on local social media, or take the flags down again.

The flags are illegal: the cameras doubly so, I'd have thought, given privacy laws?? Or at least, I'm assuming surveillance cameras mounted on public property and aimed at pedestrians and drivers have to be done by a legitimate authority.

I look at what was happening in Belfast (and elsewhere) last night and honestly, I'm terrified for our country. We seem to be sliding into lawlessness and vigilantism, and blatant intimidation of anyone who speaks out against it.

Please stop listening to misinformation.

Immigration has reduced.

Immigration isn’t the issue the likes of Farage would have you believe. Him and his party are using it to dog whistle and get people angry.

Go and search your own facts rather than surface level disinformation. Research it.

Our local Reform candidate came round during our local elections and one of their main policies - third down on their leaflet - was to stop housing asylum seekers in hotels. Like it was a massive issue.

In Wales at that time there were 75 Assylum Seekers housed in hotels. That’s 0.002 of the whole population. It was costing roughly 0.2% of total public spending. It would have saved a fraction of that and likely would have cost waaay more than it saved (setting humanitarian issues to one side).

So why was it third on their manifesto?
Why make that a headline?
Why focus on something causing so little issue?

TO GET POWER. Using people’s hidden racism, fear, anger, the currently disgusting levels of inequality in this country and ‘othering’ a small group of human beings and blaming them so that people turn their anger on them and vote in fascist right wing parties - who then will use their POWER to make themselves richer. MONEY AND POWER.

That is everything Reform stands for.

And it’s EXACTLY what the Nazis did.

Nigel is lining his own pockets. He wants power and money. Him and his mate Aaron Banks made a fortune with Brexit - which is where this disgusting situation started. He has made a fortune from his political ‘career’. He does not care about ‘the people’. He is using them for his own gain.

** figures are rough AI generated but will be close enough and make the point.

It’s not ‘just a flag’ when used like this.

Would you say the same about a swastika? It’s being used in exactly the same way.

It evokes fear and what these people are doing is intimidation.

NOTHING about what they are doing is ok.

What the morons who are putting the flags up think the Union Jack represents England? I wonder what the Scots think about that (also Welsh).

I didn't say it was nothing to worry about, a crime is a crime and should be dealt with severely. It is the blaming all non-white people for the crimes of a few that is terrifying. I would suggest you read up about the years prior to WW2 when the Jews in Germany were blamed for eveything in a similar way. Inparticular Krystallnacht in relation to the violence in Belfast where homes and cars (some of which belonged to white Irish people anyway) were destroyed.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/kristallnacht

I know I'm wasting my time though. I might as well try and teach my dog physics.

I live in a small town where we have a large number of male asylum seekers housed in a hotel. We also have a mob of angry men who have covered the town in flags, issue threats to anyone who doesn't like them, and regularly gather to shout abuse outside the hotel.

I also have a 7 year old daughter. If for some reason I had to leave her alone with one of those groups, I'd pick the asylum seekers over the "local" men every time. Genuinely. The flag wavers scare me far more.

Absolutely

This whole flag-shagging nonsense is getting out of hand. There's nothing wrong with being proud of your country, but this isn't that. We all know, deep down that, no matter how much people deny it and argue about it, the recent appearance of the majority of these flags, and the clowns painting roundabouts, and also daubing a red cross on the front sign of a hotel hosting refugees, that this is really all about making refugees and other non-white people feel unwelcome and uncomfortable.

I have two major issues with your point OP

1 in lumping all England flag displays in together and making the worst possible interpretation of motivation, you and PPs are doing exactly the same as you are accusing the flag flyers of - lumping all poc together. They are not.
In reality as others have pointed out there are a number of motivations for flying the flag of England.
As far as I can see the worst messaging and interpretation is coming from prejudiced PPs who are largely making stuff up. I’m seeing a lot of that on this thread.

2 It’s a peaceful protest. It couldn’t be much more peaceful. No property or people are being damaged and in a world where the ill effects of certain types of immigration are being keenly felt in English (and formerly English) working class communities and instead of listening, the authorities vilify and try and shut them down, I think it’s a fair protest.

The only message these flags are sending is to the specific people who hate Western society and British values. The ones that come here to kill and terrorise and rape. The authorities have swept this under the carpet for years but even they are recognising there is a problem with violence from specific countries. It was even reported on the BBC last night!!

The main concern I have is that your prejudice seems to have blinded you to reality.

Hopefully with all the cameras that have been erected, there won’t be any attempted murder or beheading in the area you live in, I’d appreciate the extra security if I had to walk through your town alone. There is never a problem in rural areas until there is.

Justifies the flags too. Let’s chill out for a few weeks, eh, and enjoy the football?

So how come you suddenly get a monopoly on inferring "the only message these flags are sending?" and to whom they are sending it?

You'd have thought anyone reading the BBC live feed right now would be worried about stirring up hate and fear in the community even if that is "only" by flying flags. Carers have had to be evacuated from care homes FFS. And that's not just a Belfast issue. Members of my own team have been frightened to travel to work because of racist protests.

Exactly. We don’t get riots on freezing cold wet nights in January

Ah yes, the attempted murder/beheading that famously wasn’t filmed.

I'd love it if these clearly very feminist 'patriots' turned this level of passion and care for women into energy dealing with the rapists and abusers who were born here.

1.4 million domestic violence incidents were recorded in the UK in 2025 – and a woman on average experiences 35-50 attacks before she reports for the first time.

Where has all this 'protective instinct' been while we were dying at the hands of abusive men until now? What kind of patriotism is that?

Not all filming in public is legal. It is not legal to put your own camera up on a public lamppost. If someone wants to film, they can stand and film. However that could tip over into harassment/intimidation and therefore illegal.

It's important not to concede ground to unreasonable behaviour.

Fly any flag you want on your own private property, put your own camera up on your own property if you want. Public property is public property.

There is nothing wrong with flags per se. But when a significant chunk of the population uses the flag to promote its message of division and hate, then the flag itself inevitably becomes tainted for ordinary, decent people who don't buy into the racism.

It's a shame. I know a lot of football fans who feel that they aren't able to get behind the England flag in this world Cup because it has become so sullied.

There will be flags everywhere soon - there always is during football. Harmless.

Used like ‘what’ though?

As far as I can see they are being flown like flags - which is their purpose.

You appear to be taking a tiny number of examples of bad actors and extrapolating about to all with no evidence to back that. That’s not very reasonable or helpful.

I note that a pp uses the perjorative 'gammons'. (There's a word for insults based on skin colour but I don't see it applied equally.)
A Pp uses the popular performative insult 'flag shaggers' and I wonder if they'd use it for enthusiasts of the 'pride progress' or Palestine flags.
I also see the irony of posters on various threads naming these apparently all white troublemakers after a group of Kali worshipping bandits from India.

@Corianda said the flags would come down when the government stopped immigration. Draw your own conclusions.

would you say the same about a swastika?

Where I live is refreshingly flag-free, as you would expect of a town where, back in the days when people regularly bought a daily newspaper, sales of the Guardian exceeded sales of all the other dailies put together.

A load of flags went up along one of the few main roads in the area when "Raise The Colours" was first a thing. They were reported to the local county councillor almost as soon as they appeared, she raised it with the council's head of highways and they were gone within 48 hours. They haven't reappeared.

There aren't even many flags on houses, just a few on a couple of the estates. There may be more now the World Cup is starting, but I haven't seen any round my way.

You can’t stop immigration. Don’t be ridiculous.

IMMIGRATION HAS COME DOWN.

Please don’t fall for Nigel’s dog whistle tactics. It makes you appear to have the intellect of a canine and I’m sure you are better than that.

Dig behind the headlines. Check facts.

What is happening now is EXACTLY the same as WWII. And it’s all about Farage and his privileged chums getting more power and more money.

I work for a safety and security company. You would be surprised about the high quality detail, facial recognition software and now the development of AI software for identifying weapons. If anyone thinks that cctv images are grainy still, then you are mistaken. Many councils are upgrading their camera networks in public spaces and the technology and quality of the images is incredible.
(Sorry not the point of the thread, but I wanted to make that correction! Members of the public cannot add hardware to lampposts without permission from whoever owns it, I would report this to the council directly)

Are you actually comparing our national flag to a swastika?