Don't call this racist': row grows over motives behind England flag campaign

A fundraising group called the Wythall Flaggers has raised over £2,000 in small donations to cover the Worcestershire village of Wythall with St George's flags. Organisers assert members of all ethnicities support the campaign and deny racist intent. Social media footage reportedly shows an elderly couple removing an English flag, prompting hostile online comments calling them 'traitors'. National flags reappeared in public spaces after England's women's football team won the European Championship. Operation Raise the Colours encourages posting flags across towns and cities, while critics warn the organised campaign could inflame tensions amid anti-migrant protests and rising far-right activity.

This is NOT racist never has been never will be, reads the fundraising page of a group calling itself the Wythall Flaggers, which by Tuesday afternoon had raised more than 2,000, mostly in small donations of 5 and 10. We have members of the community of all ethnicities and religions stopping by and praising what we are doing so please don't call this racist.

The money, according to the page's organiser, will be used for coating the local community in England flags as this is home and we should be patriotic and proud We need help to cover every street in Wythall with our beautiful St George's cross. If only all in the Worcestershire village, south of Birmingham, agreed. Footage posted on social media earlier this week claims to show an elderly couple using a ladder to remove the English national flag from a lamp-post in the village.

Let's bring back patriotism once and for all, reads the Facebook page of Operation Raise the Colours, which urges members to post images of the assorted national flags of the four British nations being raised around our great towns and cities. Users from Walsall and Coventry and Redditch have posted images of flags on lamp-posts and painted on mini-roundabouts and folded in piles ready for deployment. In case anyone needs flags Temu has them, wrote one poster. Amazon has a deal on flagpoles, suggested another.

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