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Now the English flag is being used like a Swastika to intimidate people and create a nation of fear. Where is Starmer proscribing UK fascist organisations? Too busy proscribing organisations and people who object to his support of Zionist fascism! What a sorry state of affairs this country is in!
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/man-arrested-england-flag-essex-b2813320.html
9 ministers have resigned from the Dutch government in support of Gaza.
When are ours going to show the same gumption?
Dutch government is in chaos. The prime minister can’t lead and has no political authority. The experiment of a technocrat has failed. Schoof is no Mario Draghi.
Trust me, these c***s are just in it for the headlines.
They chose to form a coalition with über-fascist Wilders. Lest we forget.
This country has taken such massive leaps to the right in the last 20 years. It’s as bad as Hungary.
By the way, Wilders’ wife is from Hungary and he’s very chummy with Orban.
I’m really suspicious about where this flag waving agenda is coming from. People are free to erect flags on their own property. By placing flags on public furniture like streetlight, they are forcing the councils to take them down, and reinforcing the narrative that the country is under attack by anti English forces. The fact that there has been several dog whistle comments from the American political establishment directed to English nationalists, and the belief by the English Right that we are in a near state of civil war, believed and observed only by them, reinforced my opinion that this is a transatlantic right wing alliance.
Its coming from the far right.
This stuff is all over local Facebook pages.
There’s been a push from “raise the colours” which is a far right organisation.
The thing in Essex was organised and pushed by someone who has ties to explicitly fascist groups and organisations.
I have looked at Facebook pages around here – they are almost universally grim.
So by the sound of it, there’s plenty of evidence that this epidemic of plastic patriotism is the work of the far right. In that case, it should be easy for the police to go after those behind it if any criminal acts e.g. attacking people removing these flags, occurs. Shouldn’t it?
Oh hang on, the government is more interested in arresting retired vicars holding up signs saying they support PA, than go after far right thugs who threaten asylum seekers and charities who help them.
Piss on left wing protesters, treat far right protesters with kid gloves. No steer Kier strikes again.
Mr TomB – I have a suspicion that, August = slow news month that the daft flag waving was given prominence partly due to lack of news, but also becuase it diverts attention away from the list partly composed by me and rounded off by Richard. It is politically useful to get UK peasants hot under the collar about a flag – diverts attention from other stuff of import, wastes their time, keeps the focus on utter trivia etc & ToryLINODeform breathes a sign of relief.
It raises awareness of our country , much like flying the Stars & stripes everywhere in USA. But you knew that, its why you did not make it an option, Add that as an option & repost your message.
Do you really think people are unaware of our country?
I mean, how stupid do you have to be to be unaware of where you live?
How have you got to the age where you cannot hear and not know?
I am truly baffled.
Or are you really saying that the flag raises awareness that we could turn this country into a place for racism to flourish? Is that your real message, because I can’t think of another one.
@Ian
It is a little more complicated than your comment presents.
Many places in the “Deep South” fly the Confederate Flag right next to the Stars and Stipes for all to see.
I can say this as a person who every Monday thru Friday morning in kindergarten through the 8th grade stood up to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and as a person who lived for many years in the “Deep South”.
Footnote: Florida is NOT the “Deep South”.
Ian. When I got out of bed this morning I stepped onto a rug, on the floor of a house that, when I went to bed last night, was in ENGLAND, and still was this morning. The rug was recently bought from the John Lewis Partnership – an ENGLISH company, with its head office in ENGLAND.
Later, I briefly went to visit my daughter, who lives about a mile away in a suburb of Nottingham. The suburb and Nottingham are both in ENGLAND – always have been and always will be.
Then I drove to the River Trent – which flows through ENGLAND – to go for a sail. The sailing club is next door to the National Water Sports Centre – which is in ENGLAND.
Driving to a from the River Trent I passed many, many, road signs – all in ENGLISH – because the roads are in ENGLAND.
And do you know – and this may seem strange to you – I didn’t once see the Cross of St George or Union Jack flags, and not once did I need to see them to ‘raise my awareness’ that I was in ENGLAND, and that I also happen to be ENGLISH.
Regarding your point about people in the US flying the Stars and Stripes (and BayTampaBay’s comments), I’m sure I’m not the only person in the UK who always found American’s flying of the flag a bit OTT, to be honest. But then a lot that happens in the US is OTT to us Brits, or at least it used to be, though it does seem that the desire to have a British version of Donald Trump is growing – though I suspect that might change as we see the full impact of his totalitarian tendencies destroy US democracy and large sections of it’s civil society (not to mention economy).
Ps. Just so you know that I don’t hate flags, I have a joint Union Jack-Ukrainian flag sticker on the back window of my car because in that case I do think it’s valid to make a statement that as a citizen of the UK I support the UK governments support of Ukraine in the war Russia started.
Thanks
So this is England? I never knew, thank you for pointing that out – at a stroke you have fed hungry children, cut waiting lists and built affordable houses. Thank you, thank you thank you!!!
This is a campaign organised by the far right and those stupid enough to believe them. The England flag used in this way is a statement of racist right wing nationalism, nothing more.
Shoving the flag down a populations throat is the hallmark of dictatorships. Nazi Germany was plastered with the swastika, and the USSR did the same with the Hammer and Sickle.
There are legitimate times to wave a country’s flag, e.g football tournaments, but this is nothing to do with support for one’s country.
Much to agree with
There’s already been a campaign to “rebrand” the swastika and the Nazi salute — oh sorry, the Bellamy salute — as historical “heritage.”
Yes, I’m absolutely sure the Jewish student in your classroom, in Alabama, appreciates the subtle differentiation and being told to apologize.
g) aim to distract people’s attention from the fact that politicians of all parties have zero interest in addressing any of the above?
Isn’t it strange how this epidemic of chronic flag waving and protests outside hotels comes at the same time that the last of the brave heroes of WW2 who fought the fascistic Nazi regime have passed away? To me those promoting this epidemic insult the memories and actions of our brave forefathers. They are an utter disgrace. But what do you expect from those who follow the Fartrage who, it has been claimed, openly sang Nazi songs whilst attending the immensely expensive Dulwich College public school?
My grandfather – the one who gave me my name – died in WWII and has a Wargrave Commission gravestone to prove the point. One of the questions that I keep asking myself is why the heck did he have to die too young, and before I ever knew him, if this is where we wanted to get to?
Oh, this is England alright, bloody contemporary England for sure…………………..
Ivan, as a Nottingham lad myself, nice to hear about my home town, a place which I remember as being very well racially integrated in the past, going to the homes of school friends who were Muslims, Sikhs, Jews and Christians to play/hang out after school.
I assumed you might be from Nottingham, PSR, from things you’ve mentioned over the years. So far I have to say the city remains pretty tolerant of all its mix of peoples. It’s probably a bit different out in some of the districts, like Ashfield, where Reform did well in the local elections. But that wasn’t a surprise seeing that’s the “home” of the awful Lee Anderson. But the city’s good – and thriving, despite the council having no money.
I am on holiday in Dungeness at the moment with little internet access
There is a house on the seafront flying the skull and crossbones and the red dragon of Wales a flag I first saw flying from the jackstaff of the Bristol Queen as a three year old
Flags, Division, and the Real Enemy
In Britain today, the game is rigged. Speak out against anti-immigrant rhetoric and you are branded “far left”. Wave a flag and you are dismissed as “far right”. Meanwhile, the people at the top laugh all the way to the bank.
They strip the wealth we create, fence off the land we are forced to rent back at extortionate rates, and cash in on the wars and destruction that drive people to seek refuge abroad. Then they pit us against one another over flags and symbols, while their power and privilege remain untouched.
History makes the lesson clear: progress has only ever come when ordinary people stood together. From the peasants’ revolt to the Chartists and the general strikes, solidarity defeated division. Today, unity feels further away than ever. Division is not an accident; it is carefully engineered, and too many of us are swallowing it whole.
The flag proves the point. Once flown over colonies built on brute force, it is now hijacked by far-right thugs who use it as cover to smash up their own towns, leaving councils and communities to pick up the bill. Brexit was sold as a patriotic triumph; in truth, it was a con that robbed the young and handed more to the already rich.
Divide and rule has always been the weapon of the ruling class. The refugee is not the enemy. The neighbour who disagrees about a flag is not the enemy. The enemy is the system, and those who profit from it, that keep us trapped. Until we stop falling for the trick, we will keep losing.
OK. Simple question.
Who is more liuklely to address the needs of ordinary British people?
Farage, or Corbyn?
I know who has spent, and does spend more time in the company of and listening to ordinary British people (rather than jetting across to see Trump.
Clue – check out his (Corbyn’s) Remembrance Day appearances at the Cenotaph, and how he spent his time and who he talked to. (Then read the smears in the press.)
Drove from S Bristol through Gloucestershire and Bath/NE Somerset to Wiltshire today and saw my first St George flag desecrations.
S Bristol 1 zebra crossing
Gloucestershire- a double mini roundabout
BANES – another mini roundabout.
They all looked v scruffy.
Plus a St George flag on a bridge over Bristol ring road.
I (a Scot) had to drive over the flags painted on the road so insulting the entire English population. Is this what they wanted?
Is this fascist graffiti outbreak, vandalism, terrorism, a hate crime, or desecration?
Maybe both