Thread by @NotThatBigIan

🧵Some observations about flags and their meanings:
Growing up in Northern Ireland during the 'Troubles' is not a proxy for what's happening in England but it is a warning from recent history about the creeping sectarianisation of polarised communities not spoken to or for. 1/

When I was growing up, my father put the Union flag on a pole at our house along with all his neighbours for the Twelfth 'fortnight' It was a simple gesture of identity in an overwhelmingly unionist community using the flag of the UK on private property that went up, then down. 2/

The purpose of this exercise was not just celebratory. It was a statement of defiance at a time when IRA terrorists were hard at work in our border region murdering people like us for their Britishness in a futile and bitter sectarian conflict. 'We are what we hold' 3/

Despite the intensity of the threat, there was no sense that territory was being aggrandised. The paradox now is that after the threat of political violence has all but evaporated, town centres, approach roads and kerbstones are now festooned with communal identity symbols. 4/

These now include Palestinian & Israeli flags in republican and loyalist areas respectively - communal identifiers carrying ancient enmity into a modern context. Identity politics has moved from the private to the public realm in a place we still can't even agree the name for. 5/

Where there are flags in contested spaces, sometimes out of step with demographic reality, 'interface' areas get created. We will soon see this if not careful in towns and cities in England. First the glass curtain, then the iron one. 6/

We need to work out what this means. In Northern Ireland, the proliferation of flags often points to a collapse of morale in one community with a concomitant resurgence in confidence in a neighbouring one. Zero-sum territory marking. 7/

Neither of these features should be lightly dismissed or prioritised. In places where legal and illegal migration has rapidly changed local demography and spawned community safety fears communal identity by white English people is reasserting itself whatever HMG tells it. 8/

In NI there is paralysis over flag displays with government departments and police endlessly passing the toxic parcel of removing flags on public property at interface areas. This void encourages and emboldens those who want to use flags not as celebration but provocation. 9/

Serious rioting occurred in Belfast and other towns in NI in 2012 when a decision was made by Belfast City Councillors to stop displaying the Union flag 365 days a year at City Hall. It was perceived as an attack on 'Britishness.' See any parallels emerging? 10/

The very worst thing HMG can do in the light of developing flag phenomenon where Union and St George's flags proliferate is pretend this is an XRW bandwagon and not a symptom of collapse in trust in Government to protect citizens pushed too far by illegal migration. 11/

There will be more frequent and inevitably more violent encounters between people with different identities as flags go up in contested places. The sectarianisation of public space is becoming a reality. Actions will provoke reactions. 12/

John Hume, one of the architects of the NI peace process, was fond of saying 'you can't eat a flag' pointing to the very real other problems confronting working class people trying to make ends meet. But you can't eat platitudes either. 13/

Anger over illegal migration is now a preoccupation of many people living in neighbourhoods transformed by demographic change. Flags are a symptom, not a cause of this. Flailing helplessness, smears, bad policing & jam tomorrow solutions by disconnected politicians feeds it. 14/

You might find this ironic coming from someone with two flags in his bio. But that's because I'm reconciled after years of trauma with the two vital aspects of my identity-Irishness and Britishness. And alive to the destruction 'othering' can bring. 15/15