"Its origins apparently lie in a few flags being cleared from lamp-posts as the city council tried to install LED lighting. In the hands of online provocateurs, that was enough to confirm stories about woke local bureaucrats denying people their national identity. That narrative has quickly ballooned, with sometimes grimly comical consequences: the dependably restrained Reform UK MP Lee Anderson says that any elected official who supports removing British or English flags should be removed from office for betraying the very country they serve,"
"That very small subplot is probably the only halfway amusing part of the story: everything else is deadly serious. Despite claims that it is all about patriotism rather than prejudice, what has materialised up and down the country feels like an unauthorised version of what the Home Office used to call the hostile environment, as if football hooligans have taken control of road markings and street furniture."
Flags and painted crosses have appeared across towns such as Devizes and been sprayed on roundabouts, while vandalism near schools and dumped paint cans have provoked local rows. The campaign, called Operation Raise the Colours, appears to have started after a few flags were cleared from lamp-posts during LED-lighting work in Birmingham. Online provocateurs amplified the removals into claims of bureaucratic denial of national identity. Political figures framed removals as betrayal, while some officials cited health and safety. The phenomenon has turned street furniture and markings into symbols of intimidation, creating a hostile, unsettled public mood.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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