Reform councillor says flag flying sends message ‘people are fed up’

A Reform councillor has claimed that a trend for flying flags sends a message that “people are fed up” when it comes to immigration.

Thomas Kerr, a Reform UK councillor for Shettleston in Glasgow, has said the hanging of Scottish flags on lampposts across the country should be allowed and councils in Scotland should follow “what Reform councils are doing in England”.

Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland he responded to questions on the “anti- immigration message attached” to the flags across Scotland.

He said: “They’re being attached to a message of: people are fed up. They’re saying enough is enough and that they can’t take the numbers we’re having. I think that’s fair and reasonable for working class communities to be able to express their opinions in the way in which they’re doing.

“I would encourage the councils to do what Reform councils are doing in England, which is to let people be able to fly their specific pride if they’re putting their countries’ flags up.”

The comments come as Scotland’s Saltire flag has been hung on lampposts around the country following a similar trend in England with the English flag.

Anti-immigration campaign groups have raised the flags as part of a UK-wide protest called “Raise the Colours”, coinciding with demonstrations against housing asylum seekers in hotels.

Council workers have been deployed to remove the flags – however, council workers in Aberdeenshire and Falkirk have suspended removals after reported incidents of abuse.

Concerns were raised at First Minister’s Questions on Thursday over the flags and what they symbolised.

Speaking in the Scottish Parliament, Bob Doris, SNP MSP for Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn, asked how First Minister John Swinney would support the people of Maryhill.

He said: “Hundreds of Scottish Saltires have been put up in my constituency, predominantly but not exclusively in the Maryhill area.

“The Saltire is inclusive, welcoming, and tolerant. However, serious concerns have been raised by many of my constituents that there may be an attempt by the far right to hijack our country’s flag.

“Will the First Minister show his solidarity with the people of Maryhill, the vast majority of whom are indeed welcoming, tolerant and inclusive – and what practical support can the Scottish Government offer our communities?”

Mr Swinney addressed the concerns and said he believed the Scottish flag has always been an “inclusive flag.”

He said: “The national flag of Scotland has always been represented as an inclusive flag, which is there to draw all of us together in Scotland as an essential part of our national identity. I would always want to make sure that was the case.

“I had the pleasure of being in Mr Doris’s constituency last Thursday at the launch of a magnificent partnership between Home Start, Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board, and the Glasgow City Council, which is supporting many vulnerable families in the Maryhill area, and I was glad that Mr Doris made it possible for me to be there.

“At the heart of that event was the spirit of inclusion, the welcome to people from other places who had made Glasgow their home, who’d made Maryhill their home, and who were proud of that fact.

“So I think … the government will give the leadership and the practical support to community cohesion that we offer, because we believe, as Mr Doris does, that Scotland is best served by being an inclusive, welcoming country.

“It has been in the past and it must be in the future.”