There is a story in the Express UKIP fury as Labour and Lib Dems ‘claim Union flag is nasty and nationalistic. This story is based off a Conservative party press release that UKIP MEP Jane Collins has reacted to. She is quoted as having said:
They’re quite happy to take their expenses off the British taxpayer yet insult the country by saying that children should not sing the national anthem and that the Union Flag is ‘nasty’.
We categorical deny having called the Union Flag nasty, and wonder where the UKIP MEP who wasn’t at the meeting got this quote from.
What we said was:
Liberal Democrat councillors on Calderdale Council voted against a Conservative motion calling on the Council to fly the Union Flag more often and encouraging schools to do the same and sing the National Anthem in assemblies. People don’t need to wave a flag and sing to show pride in their country.
We would encourage patriotism, but the Tories are in danger of encouraging the nationalism that did so much damage in the twentieth century. Citizenship is an important part of the national curriculum in schools and we should leave it to teachers and governors to decide on the most appropriate ways of promoting British values in their schools.
One British value that we believe in – that of compassion for those in more difficult circumstances – was sadly lacking in the Conservative comments on Syrian refugees within the Council meeting.
Below for the sake of clarification is the wording of the Labour amendment to the Conservative motion. This amended was carried and that became the substantive motion the Council passed. Noticed nowhere does it call the flag ‘nasty’, in fact it includes a schedule of days in which we WOULD fly the flag.
This motion was a cynical attempt by the Conservatives to try and put Labour on the spot after Corbyn refused to sign the anthem. UKIP have jumped on the bandwagon, and are all too happy to stir up the divisive politics of patriotism that we seem to be importing now from the US.
At a time when people are literally drowning as they try to escape one of the worst humanitarian disasters of the 21st century it’s a shame that Conservative and UKIP supporters think the most important topic of the day is trying to encourage schools to sing the anthem and fly the flag. If they really wanted to demonstrate British values then showing some compassion and focusing on helping those poor people would be the way to do it.
The full text of the motion is as follows:
Flying the Union Flag
This Council: (a) Notes that promotion of our British values and participation in civil society is an important part of the national curriculum, and recognises that headteachers and governors have the responsibility for determining the most appropriate ways of applying and promoting our shared values within their school community.
(b) Resolves to continue to delegate decisions over the flying of flags from the Town Hall and other civic buildings to the Governance and Business committee, in consultation with the Civic Advisory Group, and notes the current arrangements agreed by the Council as per below:
(c) Requests the Governance and Business Committee to consider how greater prominence can be given to Citizenship Ceremonies, highlighting the commitment show to this country by those who seek to adopt our citizenship.
* James Baker is a Liberal Democat member who works for the Open Rights Group
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Back on the campaign trail
1963: London's summer of the Hoverbus
Have resignations led to a rethink?
nigel hunter
Chloe
Abrial Jerram
19 Comments
I went to primary school not far from Halifax (a v. long time ago)….. We used to have to sing all the verses of ‘All things bright and beautiful including :
The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them high and lowly,
And ordered their estate.
Rebelling against this just might have triggered off my first symptoms of Liberalism….. No doubt the Calderdale Tories will be trying to restore the verse next. Probably my Dad’s instincts were similar when, after a very testing war service, he told me to “always avoid the b……. y flag waggers”………
The Daily Express has long since ceased to be anything vaguely resembling a newspaper. It is merely the plaything of a megalomaniacal porn baron, who uses it as a vehicle for his hate-filled, deranged worldview.
Ironically, one of the many things that makes me proud to be British is that we don’t constantly feel the need to engage in acts of unthinking jingoism. Forcing children to sing the national anthem in assemblies would undoubtedly constitute just such a practice. I’ve been a republican from a very early age and would’ve felt profoundly uncomfortable (to say the least) being dragooned into singing “God save the Queen.” That said, I have no sympathy whatsoever for the alleged leader of what is now the People’s Temple Cult. (Formerly known as the Labour Party). For being the Leader of the Opposition entails certain responsibilities, one of which is to observe formal niceties in relation to the reigning monarch. If someone has a genuine aversion to performing such duties, fine; but then I’m bound to say that they shouldn’t have put themselves forward for such a formal constitutional role in the first place. It’s rather like a conscientious objector signing up for military service and then refusing to fight once they’ve entered the field of conflict. All rather silly, really.
I’ll tell you a little story. A few years ago our local council discovered that one of the clauses in its insurance covered ‘terrorist attacks’. As it would neither save us money by excluding it nor cost us any more to leave it in I successfully proposed that we left it as it was. You may ask why a little town like North Hykeham would need to worry about such things, which is precisely the angle the Daily Mail took when they reported it.(For those of you who don’t know, North Hykeham sits proudly and independently on the south west edge of the City of Lincoln). What I knew, and what our illustrious daily did not apparently know, was that, through my role at the time on the local Police Authority (R.I.P), I knew that, just a few miles away in a small village nearby was the country residence of a junior Northern Ireland minister, which the local constabulary checked out every night! In any case, you never know where terrorists might appear, even here in ‘sleepy’ Lincolnshire.
@David Morrison
“For being the Leader of the Opposition entails certain responsibilities, one of which is to observe formal niceties in relation to the reigning monarch. If someone has a genuine aversion to performing such duties, fine; but then I’m bound to say that they shouldn’t have put themselves forward for such a formal constitutional role in the first place.”
Just so I’m not misunderstanding you here… Are you seriously saying that people who do not wish to “observe formal niceties” towards the monarch should not seek to lead a political party?
Ms Collins writes Nasty press releases. She also likes to wrap herself in the Union Kack. She is probably just severely- confused, thinking that people criticising her are criticising the cloth she tries to drape around herself. 😉
David Morrison 9th Oct ’15 – 8:27pm…………… It’s rather like a conscientious objector signing up for military service and then refusing to fight once they’ve entered the field of conflict. All rather silly, really……..
Not really! Corbyn has never made any secret of his stance on this (and many other things)…More like a conscientious objector volunteering to serve his country in the medical corps rather than the Coldstream guards….
FYI…The RAMC does not carry a Regimental Colour or Queen’s Colour, although it has a Regimental Flag, nor does it have battle honours…However, few would decry its members as as lacking in patriotism…
David Morrison ” For being the Leader of the Opposition entails certain responsibilities, one of which is to observe formal niceties in relation to the reigning monarch”
Blimey! What happened to ” none shall be enslaved by conformity” ? I thought the Lib Dems were republicans – surely it’s a good thing for the Leader of the Opposition to challenge some of the archaic rules of The Establishement? Lib Dems should be supporting Corbyn in the and maybe one day people might at least wake up to the fact that institutions such as the House of Lords with their ermine etc are totally out of date. How does change come about unless one challenges the status quo in a big bold way as Corbyn has done, by simply refusing to be a part of it? I respect him for it to be honest.
@Stuart:
Not the party which is the official Opposition, no. If Mr. Corbyn had aspirations to become leader of the SWP or some other Trotskyite sect more congenial to his hard Left worldview, then there would be no problem. But being Leader of the Opposition in a constitutional monarchy is completely different, and necessarily involves observing those formal niceties to which I referred. One cannot simply avoid them without showing a fundamental disrespect for the nature of the office. And there’s a reason why it’s called Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition.
Michael Foot was also a life-long republican, yet as far as I can recall he had no problem with carrying out his formal constitutional duties, either as a cabinet minister or as Leader of the Opposition. But then, Michael Foot, whatever his faults (and there were many) was at least a serious politician and not some overgrown, posturing adolescent.
@expats
But being Leader of (Her Majesty’s loyal) Opposition is a formal constitutional position. It isn’t just being the leader of a political party; there’s much more to it than that. I really don’t see why someone should apply for a position, knowing full well what’s expected of them, and then refuse to carry out their duties once they’re successful. This is simply gesture politics at its worst, the kind at which Mr. Corbyn and his ilk excel.
To apply your analogy to Corbyn I could say that there are other ways in which he could serve his country, ones that wouldn’t involve the need to bow and scrape before the Queen.
@Phyllis:
But the office of Leader of the Opposition is, of its very nature, a slave to conformity of some sort or another. Of course the institution of the monarchy is archaic and supremely silly. I did make clear in my original post that I’m a republican myself. But that’s why I would never elect to put myself in a position where I’d be expected to bow and scrape before the Queen in the first place. I’m sure that when Ken Livingstone was leader of the GLC and he met the Queen, he had no problem in observing the formal courtesies. Yet no one, I think, would accuse him of lacking principle.
If we could just get back to Calderdale for a moment, the situation Councillor Baker describes has distinct echoes of the “flags dispute” in Belfast City Council. The Alliance Party deserves great credit for sticking unwaveringly to its support for the flying of the Union Flag over the City Hall on designated days only, despite physical attacks on its members and their premises. Because they hold the balance of power on Belfast City Council their policy has held sway. Calderdale must do the same.
@ David Morrison,
Why would anyone who wishes to be taken seriously involve themselves in all the ridiculous flummery that has developed to bolster an undemocratic institution? As a formal nicety, isn’t shaking hands enough? Singing God Save the Queen when one does not believe in God is cynical posturing in the extreme.
I took against singing the National anthem as a child when we had to stand and sing it at cinemas. I would now consider myself a Republican. I have a more ambiguous attitude to the flag. When the Union Jack was appropriated by the extreme right, I was hostile to flag waving, ( as I am to the views of UKIP), but now I have been persuaded that we need to ‘take our flag back’ so that it symbolises the compassion ( which is not just a British Value) and all other values we claim to uphold, for example, the sort of values encapsulated in the preamble.
As a proud Yorkshire woman, when I see the Union Jack draped around the shoulders of Britons such as Jessica Ennis- Hill, I feel extreme pride and a sense that she brought honour to our country and that she put in all that effort to make people like me feel good. It brings tears to my eyes and makes me proud to be British in a way that cannot be easily articulated.
A flag is a symbol and it encapsulates so many un-expressed and often un- expressible emotions. In my opinion, we shouldn’t cede its meaning to the ‘flag waggers’ that David Raw’s dad referred to. Teachers would have a primary role in ensuring that this doesn’t happen.
@ eis Loretto,
I don’t see those echos that you mention.
True, the issue was about the Union Jack and about how often it should be flown and where. (There have been riots about this for decades in Northern Ireland). There are those in Northern Ireland who do not want the Union Jack flying at all, so the Unionists probably had greater reason to be sensitive to the idea that restricting the number of days that the flag would be flown was an attack on their identity and an attack on Britishness. I( In my opinion thy were wrong).
In Calderdale, it seems to me that you simply have a woman casting aspersions on the patriotism of a political group in an area where residents happily gather under the umbrella of the Union Jack. People who all consider themselves, even if they are comfortable with multiple identities like the late Charles Kennedy, British.
To me, there are stronger echos of the political Right’s undermining of Jeremy Corbyn, as a British hating man who has no sense of what it is to be patriotic.
@Jayne Mansfield
We are told that this did not just arise out of the blue in Calderdale. It arose from a deliberate attempt by the Tories to stir up the whole issue The quote in James Baker’s piece is “The Liberal Democrat councillors on Calderdale Council voted against a Conservative motion calling on the Council to fly the Union Flag more often and encouraging schools to do the same and sing the National Anthem in assemblies.” It therefore has analogies with Belfast albeit as you say the issue is much more inflammable there. The resolve needed from liberal representatives is similar, although I trust physical attacks will not disgrace the peaceful streets of Calderdale.
Make Jerusalem the English National Anthem and fly the George Cross.
@ Denis Loretto,
We clearly see certain aspects of this differently.
What I see is a Conservative group who are trying to impose their view of patriotism on others. To their very great credit,
Labour and the Liberal Democrats are resisting this. They have as a result been slurred in the most offensive way.
For me, this particular issue signals a much more disturbing political phenomenon than the supposed area of disagreement , flags and anthems. It signals the willingness of the political right to portray political opponents as unpatriotic, if necessary by misinterpretation or false attribution of quotes, or by de- contextualising sentences from a larger quote that may have made.
I doubt that Liberal Democrats will be any more immune from these attacks than Jeremy Corbyn, but onward and upward.
Good James. While we’re at it can we please stop talking about staying in the EU being ‘patriotic’? It’s not a liberal argument.
@ Stuart,
I disagree that Jeremy Corbyn should not have put himself forward for a constitutional role, but I am deeply upset that he is setting the cause of Republicanism back by his behaviour.
There are powerful arguments to be had but he chooses to offer no argument at all for his behaviour . Prior to not singing the National Anthem he should have explained his reasons which hopefully had nothing to do with disrespect for those who died. Prior to refusing to indulge in the undemocratic nonsense of the Privy Council, he should have explained his reasons , and the arguments for not doing so, not just cleared off on a hike to be photographed outside a pub.
Im my opinion, it is for the above reasons that his behaviour should be castigated and his suitability as a leader called into question.