Flying the flag

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

It doesn't actually matter if 100% wished we'd stayed in the EU.

It's rather pointless to muse on this.

We didn't stay in the EU. Many of us were disappointed

We won't be rejoining any time soon.

Kandinsky

That poll asked a 1000 people in Wales ( aged 16+ ) so could have all been 17 for all we know.
I’d like to see a 20,000 poll fir the people who actually voted before I took any notice of it.

For confirmation, here are results of the last 24 professionally conducted polls which asked "was the UK right or wrong to leave the EU". Not one poll gave a majority for "right"

www.statista.com/statistics/987347/brexit-opinion-poll/

If you want to understand why your assumption is wrong Kandinsky, I suggest you read why many who voted to lreave now regret it.

www.facebook.com/RemainerNow/

SAP. Number 8. German

Accenture. Number 9. Irish.

www.visualcapitalist.com/the-worlds-tech-giants-ranked/

Why do people just make things up?

Oldwoman70
Thank you for this list. And as we know there are pages and pages of inventions that the world has benefited from.

Interesting fact I read. Of the top 20 tech companies not one of them is European.

Kandinsky
One high profile figure who has seen the error of his ways ? is John Humphrys. Good article in the Mail today.

That poll asked a 1000 people in Wales ( aged 16+ ) so could have all been 17 for all we know.
I’d like to see a 20,000 poll fir the people who actually voted before I took any notice of it.

Oldwoman70

So you don't actually disagree with the list, just come up with words from a satirical song (written by a British man!)

The song is poking fun at the subject of the song who is lauded for being English despite having no influence on where he was born. Clever chap, Mr Gilbert. Good at highlighting pomposity.

For one thing on the list: "Britain invented the world say the Japanese" myth disproven 11 years ago:

ipkitten.blogspot.com/2010/10/fact-or-myth-now-we-know-its-myth.html

Witzend

I don’t think many people see it as a possession of the right wing, vegansrock - but do you mean the extreme right wing or anyone who isn’t very firmly left?

I would say it’s only the substantial minority of English people (NB I didn’t say British) often of the so-called liberal intelligentsia type, who for decades now have despised their own country - often with a lot of breast-beating over empire, never mind that other countries had empires, too - and seize every possible opportunity to knock it.

Somewhere I’ve got a little book with a (comic) verse whose first line goes, ‘Everyone hates the English, including the English’,

I should maybe add that as someone extremely widely travelled and who’s lived in other countries, I’ve never once found or sensed that ‘everyone’ hates us, much as that English minority would like to think so.

Where is the proof that those who disagree with you - whom you choose to disparage as "the so-called liberal intelligentsia type," despise their own country?

None whatsoever. I, for one, do not want to see this "very un-British Coup" continue. We live in a country that is going the same way as, for example, Turkey did under Erdogan who took advantage of the opportunities sent him to establish an elective dictatorship. I do not want that for my country. If you do, so be it but that does not mean either of us despises our own country.

In Turkey, this meant that elections and the real distribution of power could be pre-determined by control of the media, judiciary, civil service, security services and, if people still stubbornly voted against the government, by outright electoral fraud. We have seen the same things happening here.

The demographics of people supporting these elected dictators doesn't change and, of course, they know who they need to get on-side. The same happens time and time again. The well-heeled back a figure, who can attract enough votes from the lower and middle classes, is put in place and slowly many of the established parties slowly fall into line.

The strength of the Johnson coup is that so many cannot believe that, in our country, this could be happening. The fact that Brexit was always a path to power for the hard-right was difficult to accept and many stood back from fighting that battle; some still do not see it for what it was.

We cannot look to the past to fight this phenomenon - we must look to a brighter future produced by parties that do not want to take us down the dictatorship road. But never let it be said that we "didn't know". The signals are all around us.

Sources include:
Who Voted for Hitler? | The Nation
Boris Johnson's coup is eerily reminiscent of Erdogan's behaviour in Turkey | The Independent

So you don't actually disagree with the list, just come up with words from a satirical song (written by a British man!)

Here's another British view of the Union Jack which we might do well to reflect on. Nazir Afzal, former Chief Prosecutor with the CPS.

nazir afzal
@nazirafzal
I know large numbers of Black & Asian Britons whose experience of a Union Jack was that it was on clothing or tattooed on the fist of the men that beat them & abused them when they were young

They respect the flag, love the country, but many remain wary & some even suffer still

Here I am, the "ah but" woman and fully paid up member of the liberal intelligentsia. (Apparently) Not English though, so I hope you'll let that pass.

Your list, OldWoman70 reads like it came from the Child's Big Book of Empire, 1952 edition.

I don't know about Trial by Jury, but HMS Pinafore seems more appropriate.

For in spite of all temptations
To belong to other nations
He remains an Englishman
He remains an English man

I am glad to see that flags will be flying from public buildings; I prefer to see flags flying outside rather than draped on desks, but I don't sneer at those who choose to display them.

Kandinsky

I remember the man wrapped in an EU flag outside parliament. He was there for years wasn’t he?
I wonder if he’s still there?
Or maybe he’s shamefully hiding away happy that he’s been vaccinated against C19, because I’m sure he wouldn’t be protected from the deadly disease if we were still in his beloved EU.

Bit off topic, but I wonder if one of those ‘how would you vote now’ polls were conducted what the percentages would be?
I bet the remain vote would be nearer 30% now.
The EU’s handling of the coronavirus vaccine has done them more damage than a 1000 Nigel Farages ever could.

Posters who invent statistics just undermine their own position

The most recent poll which asked the question "in retrospect do you think that the UK was right or wrong to leave the EU" showed a majority for "wrong"

whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/in-hindsight-do-you-think-britain-was-right-or-wrong-to-vote-to-leave-the-european-union-2/?removed

Iam64

I agree vegans rock and wish that wasn’t so. We were walking with a group of friends, one had grown up in NI and has family there. They’re Catholic. His response to seeing a Union flag flying from a farm house was one of anxiety. He assumed the owners were Britain First types

Very unusual

I dated a man from Belfast who had the best accent in the world

He was Catholic. Grew up in the 70s.

We went to a friend's wedding at the local Register Office. Union Flag flying high.

Anxiety? Not at all. He just had the normal response most people would have at the sight. The country's flag flying

We also have a lot of Irish Catholics living I this area. My son is married to one. They live in England. They all came over to the wedding

No alarm at our flag

Sorry your friend seemed to have such a bad reaction but I doubt it's the norm

I don't think he's in the slightest bit ashamed of the EU flag. That silly belief comes from the same school of thought that is accusing some posters of being flag haters and haters of their own country.

There’ll be someone along shortly with a list of ‘Ah buts...’ OldWoman, poohpooing the lot!

It seems quite sneering to say ‘other countries do the flag thing’ as if we’re superior in our culture.

If he is ashamed of the EU flag due to the failures of the vaccine rollout then presumably we should be ashamed of the British Flag due to the horrific death toll in this country, the failures around care homes etc. Ir does it not work like that.

Steve Brady was right there outside Parliament last protesting loudly about the Policing bill. Being annoying...

Some people have a weird dislike of the prospect of seeing their country slide into fascism.

“ go back and read what people are actually saying about the government and its flag flying and stop making up nonsense about what the objectors think about the Union Jack.”

Absolutely.differing views are fine, there are some reasonable and reasoned posts on here but sadly there are comments which just come out with the same insults and deliberate misinterpretation

Add to that list that the British were at the forefront in the abolition of slavery

I remember the man wrapped in an EU flag outside parliament. He was there for years wasn’t he?
I wonder if he’s still there?
Or maybe he’s shamefully hiding away happy that he’s been vaccinated against C19, because I’m sure he wouldn’t be protected from the deadly disease if we were still in his beloved EU.

Bit off topic, but I wonder if one of those ‘how would you vote now’ polls were conducted what the percentages would be?
I bet the remain vote would be nearer 30% now.
The EU’s handling of the coronavirus vaccine has done them more damage than a 1000 Nigel Farages ever could.

A list of just a few of the things that the British have done and why we should be proud to fly the flag

Over half the world’s nations use the British democratic system (parliamentary democracy)

British legal system (common law with trial by jury) is used by around 25% of the world.

Maritime laws, governing all ships at sea regardless of nationality were laid out by the British 200 years ago.

Edward Jenner the pioneer of smallpox vaccine, the world's first vaccine. His work is said to have "saved more lives than the work of any other human” and Alexander Fleming for his discovery of the world's first antibiotic Penicillin.

The Japanese department of Trade and Industry (MITI) launched a massive project to list every item currently used by humans. When the project finished they discovered that 54% of all things used by mankind today across the entire world, were invented or designed by the British, the rest of the world combined made up the other 46% (Japan's share - 5%)

Important cities founded or built by the British across the world include New York, Boston, Sydney, Mumbai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Vancouver to list a few.

I would say it’s only the substantial minority of English people (NB I didn’t say British) often of the so-called liberal intelligentsia type, who for decades now have despised their own country - often with a lot of breast-beating over empire, never mind that other countries had empires, too - and seize every possible opportunity to knock it.

And I would say that this is a load of absolute excreta and that anyone who believes this should go back and read what people are actually saying about the government and its flag flying and stop making up nonsense about what the objectors think about the Union Jack.

08:28Witzend

Absolutely correct, well said and I think it applies to some posters on here.