Embarrassing (2 Viewers)

[chiefdave]

Can I fly a CCFC flag in public or does that get in the way of your flag rules?

Remember the shit show when we wanted to put flags on the roundabout flagpoles? Still nothing on them.

Mentioned before there's loads of houses round here that still have the flagpoles that were seemingly on every house when they were built. You see all sorts of flags flying, Union flags, St George, India, Pakistan, Ukraine, Palestine, football flags, armed forces, rainbows and pretty much anything you can think of. Even on the local Facebook group which is nothing but complaining there has never been a single complaint as far as I can recall.

When it's the Euros or World Cup and people decorate their houses again no complaints. The issue here seems to be that a small group of people are putting them everywhere they can think of without the permission of the landowner.

Also find the playing dumb over why it's being done a bit weird. Unless you think the entire country has suddenly got massively into the Women's Rugby World Cup then its pretty obvious it's related to the recent protests regarding immigration.

 

---

[Mucca Mad Boys]

No, it’s an acknowledgement that flags generally mean whatever you want them to mean. Personally I don’t think they hold any magical secrets to national identity, but clearly for the people running around tying them to lampposts they mean something else entirely.

More doublethink. Either flags have a meaning or they don’t. Pick a lane, and run with it.

I would question why anyone would find our flag offensive in any way? My base assumption is that if people come here for a better life, their outlook would be positive on our country and its symbols.

The person who originally went round tying up was a petty response to the council taking the flag down. Which, in the same week the council fly the Pakistani flag to celebrate another country’s independence… Actually lifts a lid on the mentality of some of our governing class.

A national’s own flag should never be seen as an act of rebellion.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Remember the shit show when we wanted to put flags on the roundabout flagpoles? Still nothing on them.

Mentioned before there's loads of houses round here that still have the flagpoles that were seemingly on every house when they were built. You see all sorts of flags flying, Union flags, St George, India, Pakistan, Ukraine, Palestine, football flags, armed forces, rainbows and pretty much anything you can think of. Even on the local Facebook group which is nothing but complaining there has never been a single complaint as far as I can recall.

When it's the Euros or World Cup and people decorate their houses again no complaints. The issue here seems to be that a small group of people are putting them everywhere they can think of without the permission of the landowner.

Also find the playing dumb over why it's being done a bit weird. Unless you think the entire country has suddenly got massively into the Women's Rugby World Cup then its pretty obvious it's related to the recent protests regarding immigration.

It is purely so they will get taken down for a different reason and the usual suspects can go 'A HA! WOKISTS HATING OUR FLAG!'. Culture war nonsense

 

[skybluetony176]

Leaving the ECHR is their next smokescreen, their next bogeyman to stay relevant and keep the masses scared while they take the piss out of the plebs.

We left the EU to take back control of our borders. Now that fairytale turned out to be a fairytale we have to leave the ECHR, when that fairytale turns out to be a fairytale they’ll be going after more international treaties we’re signed up to such as the UDHR or the ICCPR. All the while the real motivation will be happening under the radar of stupidity. Our human rights will be eroded too. The two things are symbiotic. You erase rights for this group by leaving treaties your rights are protected by those same treaties, everything from freedom of speech, freedom of assembly. The ECRH alone protects things like right to privacy, education a fair trial. Leaving the ECHR is a step towards dictatorship simply because it won’t end there as there’s other treaties that give the same protections to asylum seekers, the ECHR is just a local arbitrator.

Do you know who’s not in these international treaties. Russia, North Korea, China etc etc. all the places you wouldn’t want to live.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

The conventions were set up when millions of people were displaced, most of Europe was in ruins and folks often had nothing more to present than their clothes, never mind documentation or being able to offer proof of identity. I find this dehumanising of desperate people to be more than a bit distasteful anyway, and is just one addition to the list of reasons why we'd be leaving the country if we could.

Flipping off the EU and now flipping off international law so that we can flip off people seeking refuge here, it's disgraceful. Asylum seekers are not the reason why the country's in the state that it is.

This narrative doesn’t make sense when people are paying traffickers thousands of pounds to get to the EU and then the UK. In some cases, people are deliberately destroying their papers so they cannot be identified which is a huge red flag.

We’re no longer part of the EU, there’s actually no reason to remain in the ECHR. If this is being used to undermine UK government policy, then there’s a serious issue of sovereignty here. The idea it’s flipping off the EU is hyperbole.

No, it’s not the reason, you’re right. However, when you have the government cutting welfare for pensioners just as welfare payments to ‘foreign born’ recipients is rapidly increasing and migrant hotel costs soar is seriously bad optics when there is a huge ‘black hole’. Add in stories where there are special schemes in some areas for illegal migrants to get free prescriptions, dental care and face to face appointments (which are being scaled back) breeds anger.

This doesn’t account for crime statistics that increasingly show many nationalities are vastly overrepresented in violent & sex crimes. After all, a lot of these countries of origin are violent/war torn and/or just have different cultural norms and values to us. Specifically, the protests in Epping (and increasingly elsewhere such as Nuneaton nearer to home) is making up more and more ‘concerned parents’ than skin-headed fascists.

Against the backdrop of an electorate thag has consistently voted for less immigration for 10 years, 4 elections and a referendum… it should make sense.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

Leaving the ECHR is their next smokescreen, their next bogeyman to stay relevant and keep the masses scared while they take the piss out of the plebs.

We left the EU to take back control of our borders. Now that fairytale turned out to be a fairytale we have to leave the ECHR, when that fairytale turns out to be a fairytale they’ll be going after more international treaties we’re signed up to such as the UDHR or the ICCPR. All the while the real motivation will be happening under the radar of stupidity. Our human rights will be eroded too. The two things are symbiotic. You erase rights for this group by leaving treaties your rights are protected by those same treaties, everything from freedom of speech, freedom of assembly. The ECRH alone protects things like right to privacy, education a fair trial. Leaving the ECHR is a step towards dictatorship simply because it won’t end there as there’s other treaties that give the same protections to asylum seekers, the ECHR is just a local arbitrator.

Do you know who’s not in these international treaties. Russia, North Korea, China etc etc. all the places you wouldn’t want to live.

Did we not have human rights before 1998?

 

[SBT]

More doublethink. Either flags have a meaning or they don’t. Pick a lane, and run with it.

I would question why anyone would find our flag offensive in any way? My base assumption is that if people come here for a better life, their outlook would be positive on our country and its symbols.

The person who originally went round tying up was a petty response to the council taking the flag down. Which, in the same week the council fly the Pakistani flag to celebrate another country’s independence… Actually lifts a lid on the mentality of some of our governing class.

A national’s own flag should never be seen as an act of rebellion.

Again - I’m saying flags have whatever meaning people want them to have. People don’t find the British flag inherently offensive, or intimidating; they’re intimidated by the people choosing to wave it in the name of nativism. You say “a national’s own flag should never be seen as an act of rebellion”, handily ignoring the various ways they’re often used around the world as symbols of xenophobia, jingoism, nativism, you name it. Look at India or the United States for example.

On the other hand, the Empire State Building gets lit up a different colour every other night to represent this or that group and no-one gives a shit. As I say - it’s whatever meaning you want. You can choose to believe that Birmingham City Council doing a green and white light show for Pakistani Independence Day was this huge affront to democracy; personally I don’t think they meant much by it.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

This narrative doesn’t make sense when people are paying traffickers thousands of pounds to get to the EU and then the UK. In some cases, people are deliberately destroying their papers so they cannot be identified which is a huge red flag.

We’re no longer part of the EU, there’s actually no reason to remain in the ECHR. If this is being used to undermine UK government policy, then there’s a serious issue of sovereignty here. The idea it’s flipping off the EU is hyperbole.

No, it’s not the reason, you’re right. However, when you have the government cutting welfare for pensioners just as welfare payments to ‘foreign born’ recipients is rapidly increasing and migrant hotel costs soar is seriously bad optics when there is a huge ‘black hole’. Add in stories where there are special schemes in some areas for illegal migrants to get free prescriptions, dental care and face to face appointments (which are being scaled back) breeds anger.

This doesn’t account for crime statistics that increasingly show many nationalities are vastly overrepresented in violent & sex crimes. After all, a lot of these countries of origin are violent/war torn and/or just have different cultural norms and values to us. Specifically, the protests in Epping (and increasingly elsewhere such as Nuneaton nearer to home) is making up more and more ‘concerned parents’ than skin-headed fascists.

Against the backdrop of an electorate thag has consistently voted for less immigration for 10 years, 4 elections and a referendum… it should make sense.

If you have evidence of them destroying their papers you have evidence of knowing who they really are, that argument doesn't stack up. And to be clear, the real crime is being committed by the trafficker who is exploiting vulnerable people for profit.

On the ECHR, we were one of the countries that played a leading role in drafting it and that was well before the EU in any form came into being, and even longer before we joined it. Look at the list of articles in it and tell me which ones you find so objectionable that we need to quit it after over 70 years.

I agree about the bad optics however and have been pretty consistent in wishing that these hotels had never been utilised for this purpose. As for your last paragraph, that same rationale would justify us deporting all 'home grown' UK citizens in favour of Indian and Portuguese ones who commit crimes at higher rates. The data still show that the overwhelming majority of immigrants are law abiding citizens who contribute to the economy.

I want the country to be fixed instead of focusing on the immigrant bogeyman as a smokescreen for doing some hard work in repairing decades of damage.

 

[skybluetony176]

Did we not have human rights before 1998?

I think if you understood what a stupid question that is you wouldn’t have asked it in the first place. Of course we had human rights, they were protected by the ECHR. 1998 was the year that those rights were passed into UK law meaning that you didn’t have to go to Strasbourg to fight for your rights you could do it in the UK courts. Which actually gets to the heart of the true intention, they want to rip up current UK laws regarding rights, yours and all. Which goes back to my main point. To achieve their end goal we’ll have to leave other treaties. Anyone buying their bullshit is a turkey voting for Christmas. The ironic thing is just because they think we’re all stupid doesn’t mean we have to indulge them. Use your freedoms to educate yourself before they take those freedoms away from you by stealth. They’re already saying it in passing, teaching the right kind of history in schools, not telling you all the history at national trust sites etc etc

 

[shmmeee]

Well, at the start of Labour’s tenure there was a supposed £20bn black hole and in just over the last year they’ve ’doubled it and given it to the next one’.

It’s genuinely hilarious seeing you tell people to ‘get off the internet’ when most ordinary people in the ‘real world’ think Starmer is doing a terrible job and the country is going in the wrong direction.

To offer some copium, the early Thatcher years were a farce and it took the Falklands war to arguably save the 1983 election…

I think most people need to get off the internet yeah. Sorry man if you’re looking for someone who just says whatever most people are saying you’re in the wrong place.

Feel free to present an argument though, you’d probably be the first.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

If you have evidence of them destroying their papers you have evidence of knowing who they really are, that argument doesn't stack up. And to be clear, the real crime is being committed by the trafficker who is exploiting vulnerable people for profit.

On the ECHR, we were one of the countries that played a leading role in drafting it and that was well before the EU in any form came into being, and even longer before we joined it. Look at the list of articles in it and tell me which ones you find so objectionable that we need to quit it after over 70 years.

I agree about the bad optics however and have been pretty consistent in wishing that these hotels had never been utilised for this purpose. As for your last paragraph, that same rationale would justify us deporting all 'home grown' UK citizens in favour of Indian and Portuguese ones who commit crimes at higher rates. The data still show that the overwhelming majority of immigrants are law abiding citizens who contribute to the economy.

I want the country to be fixed instead of focusing on the immigrant bogeyman as a smokescreen for doing some hard work in repairing decades of damage.

I know the history behind the ECHR. Just because it was necessary back then, doesn’t mean it applies now.

Clement Attlee and Churchill supported it. Yet, neither person would support it now with how it is being applied now because it undermines the sovereignty of successive governments. If we’re unable to deport failed asylum seekers or violent criminals because of these laws/conventions, they’re no longer fit for purpose. After all, what about the human rights of the victims of crime?

This country has the strongest traditions of human rights. The Magna Carta and Bill of Rights is basis of most modern-day constitutions (including the US and French constitutions). The context of the ECHR was v much with Europe’s experience with Fascism/Nazism/Francoism, Communism and other dictatorships across the continent, not so much our parliamentary democracy.

A British Bill of Rights that restores the primacy of UK law is a positive step to make. The HRA explicitly puts the ECHR above UK law and that’s why human rights solicitors cite ‘x, y and z’ from the ECHR and previous rulings. A British Bill of Rights would enshrine the exact same rights so we’re hardly in the same boat as North Korea, China, Russia and/or Belarus. It is more accurate to compare to Australia, Canada and NZ whose constitutional settlements are based on English Common Law. That doesn’t fit the narrative that we need the ECHR.

The concern I have about Reform’s specific iteration of a British Bill of Rights proposal (New Labour and Tories considered a bill of rights btw) is that it mentions the bill of rights being based on nationality/residency, which is odd. Perhaps explained by the specific contexts of the time but a small and important detail that needs clarified and ironed out before it makes the statute books. For example, would it mean tourists have no human rights? They’re neither UK nationals nor residents…

 

[shmmeee]

Once again most illegal immigrants are Chinese Indian etc visitors who don’t return not people on boats. Thats who you need to find and as we’ve seen in the states that costs fucking loads and catches a whole lot of innocent people up in it.

 

[shmmeee]

I know the history behind the ECHR. Just because it was necessary back then, doesn’t mean it applies now.

Clement Attlee and Churchill supported it. Yet, neither person would support it now with how it is being applied now because it undermines the sovereignty of successive governments. If we’re unable to deport failed asylum seekers or violent criminals because of these laws/conventions, they’re no longer fit for purpose. After all, what about the human rights of the victims of crime?

This country has the strongest traditions of human rights. The Magna Carta and Bill of Rights is basis of most modern-day constitutions (including the US and French constitutions). The context of the ECHR was v much with Europe’s experience with Fascism/Nazism/Francoism, Communism and other dictatorships across the continent, not so much our parliamentary democracy.

A British Bill of Rights that restores the primacy of UK law is a positive step to make. The HRA explicitly puts the ECHR above UK law and that’s why human rights solicitors cite ‘x, y and z’ from the ECHR and previous rulings. A British Bill of Rights would enshrine the exact same rights so we’re hardly in the same boat as North Korea, China, Russia and/or Belarus. It is more accurate to compare to Australia, Canada and NZ whose constitutional settlements are based on English Common Law. That doesn’t fit the narrative that we need the ECHR.

The concern I have about Reform’s specific iteration of a British Bill of Rights proposal (New Labour and Tories considered a bill of rights btw) is that it mentions the bill of rights being based on nationality/residency, which is odd. Perhaps explained by the specific contexts of the time but a small and important detail that needs clarified and ironed out before it makes the statute books. For example, would it mean tourists have no human rights? They’re neither UK nationals nor residents…

And all the connected legislation?

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

I think if you understood what a stupid question that is you wouldn’t have asked it in the first place. Of course we had human rights, they were protected by the ECHR. 1998 was the year that those rights were passed into UK law meaning that you didn’t have to go to Strasbourg to fight for your rights you could do it in the UK courts. Which actually gets to the heart of the true intention, they want to rip up current UK laws regarding rights, yours and all. Which goes back to my main point. To achieve their end goal we’ll have to leave other treaties. Anyone buying their bullshit is a turkey voting for Christmas. The ironic thing is just because they think we’re all stupid doesn’t mean we have to indulge them. Use your freedoms to educate yourself before they take those freedoms away from you by stealth. They’re already saying it in passing, teaching the right kind of history in schools, not telling you all the history at national trust sites etc etc

You contradict yourself here. The ECHR safeguarded human rights in the UK but it was only legally binding post-1998… so it quite literally did not do this. It was English common law all along.

The UK, and specifically England, has the longest tradition of human rights and safeguarding civil liberties second to none. The Magna Carta dates back 800 years and the Bill of Rights passed nearly a century before the US constitution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789).

The proof is in the pudding because English Common Law is the basis of Canada, Australia and NZ’s constitutional frameworks and they are not and have never signed up to the ECHR. All of whom have their own version of a ‘Bill of Rights’.

The UK has never had a specific need for the ECHR and the Human Rights Act subordinating English common law was a historic mistake.

 

[Sky_Blue_Dreamer]

More doublethink. Either flags have a meaning or they don’t. Pick a lane, and run with it.

I would question why anyone would find our flag offensive in any way? My base assumption is that if people come here for a better life, their outlook would be positive on our country and its symbols.

The person who originally went round tying up was a petty response to the council taking the flag down. Which, in the same week the council fly the Pakistani flag to celebrate another country’s independence… Actually lifts a lid on the mentality of some of our governing class.

A national’s own flag should never be seen as an act of rebellion.

Even if those symbols are predominantly draped around people screaming you're not welcome and should get out?

 

[Sky_Blue_Dreamer]

Thank you for your service mate! The country can still be saved, people are finally waking up contrary to what the clowns on here will have you believe

The country maybe can be saved, but a surefire way to make it much, much worse is for Farage to get in.

He's only ever achieved one thing politically and it's been the worse thing to happen to this country for generations. Imagine if Starmer had got us to leave the EU and we'd ended up with the same economic and trade problems we have as well as an increasing migrant problem. Would you still be his little fanboy and supporting him when he said "oh, the actual problem is x"? Would you fuck.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

Even if those symbols are predominantly draped around people screaming you're not welcome and should get out?

For starters, this is an incorrect and insulting caricature.

In the scenario(s) you outlined, it’s the individuals screaming them. They could be holding a ‘welcome refugees’ flag (for arguments sake), but if the actions don’t meet the words…

The country maybe can be saved, but a surefire way to make it much, much worse is for Farage to get in.

He's only ever achieved one thing politically and it's been the worse thing to happen to this country for generations. Imagine if Starmer had got us to leave the EU and we'd ended up with the same economic and trade problems we have as well as an increasing migrant problem. Would you still be his little fanboy and supporting him when he said "oh, the actual problem is x"? Would you fuck.

Almost definitely and if you need proof, perhaps look at what is going on in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, Sweden and the Netherlands. There’s other countries not mentioned either.

Even on the economy, most of the aforementioned countries have their own economic issues as well as migration issues and EU membership hasn’t been a magical cure for them.

 

[duffer]

There have been Palestinian flags put in public places and have not been taken down.

The Union Jack and St George’s cross are the two flags (as well as the other home nation flags) where there shouldn’t be any question of motivations behind displaying the flag.

If you think the flag is being co-opted by racists and fascists, it’s more excuse for ordinary people to fly the flag.

If any migrant or asylum seeker takes exception to our flag, they probably don’t ever want to integrate with our values or ever identify as British. If that’s the case, perhaps this isn’t the place for them.

In France, who have their immigration issues to deal with, have not denigrated their flag to this extent. No one would question the motive of someone hoisting the tricolour in public places.

I don't think anyone is objecting to hanging flags off official buildings, or indeed people hanging them out of their windows, or on flagpoles on their own property. Or tattooed on their forehead if they so wish.

However, no one has any business hanging them off lampposts or painting roundabouts. That is public property and whether you like it or not, some people will find it divisive and intimidating, (which is of course the motivation for some if not most of the people doing it).

Why else do you think the far right have been helping to fund it?

As far as I'm concerned, anything stuck up on a lamppost outside my house, that's not an official notice, is within my rights to remove. It is after all, a free country, and it's my street too.

Now, why would anyone find that offensive? I'm not against anyone flying the flag on their own property, and I'm not ashamed of wearing the union flag personally, but this lamppost stuff has fuck all to do with patriotism.

As for France having pride in its flag, absolutely. But I don't remember seeing it off lampposts all across the country, so that's a nonsense argument.

In fact, the only place I can remember seeing flags hanging off lampposts in large quantities, and kerb stones painted in national colours, is in some parts of Northern Ireland. And if you're not up to speed on it, that's all about who is welcome in certain areas, and who isn't.

And that, of course, is what many people think is the real message here too.

 

[Sick Boy]

We’re no longer part of the EU, there’s actually no reason to remain in the ECHR.

Apart from the small issue of the Good Friday Agreement.