Flags at the proms

We really do need to move on from re-fighting the EU referendum to the very important and very much still live argument about what Brexit should actually look like.

Unfortunately some people - on both sides - just don't get this.

The latest piece of silliness is that, if this express article is correct, some Remain supporters are planning to wave lots of European Union flags at the last night of the proms at the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday (10th September).

It is a free country and within reason people should be able to wave whatever flags they like (I might have a problem with DA'ESH flags but that would be an entirely different matter.) And waving the EU flag during the "Ode to Joy" would make perfect sense.

Nevertheless, and I say this as someone who voted Remain myself, anything which looks like trying to "rain on the parade" of the traditional celebration of British culture and music on the last night of the Proms is not going to come over well.

We are leaving the EU but as all sensible"Leave" supporters would agree, this is perfectly compatible with wanting to remain friends and trading partners with those countries which are not.

Setting up the wish to keep EU links as a rival to British patriotism is definitely not a good idea.

Comments

Jim said…
I cant imagine it being seen as a rival to British Patriotism.

But then again I could not understand the problem with a tweet about a house with St Georges crosses on it.

It took 3 or 4 people, including your good self, for me to see any issues at all, and even then it was more the mps own reaction than the tweet itself.

To me EU flag waving at the proms would be more like "arnt we all grown up, look we have told the EU we want to leave their little club but we done so as "good friends and neighbours", and we still are good friends, trade partners and neighbours.
3:34 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
That's a very grown-up and sensible response. If everyone sees it the way you have, there will not be a problem.

The difficulty is that I think the people who are promoting this do appear to be suggesting that it is a protest rather than just a message to the EU that we still want to be friends - a message with which I would entirely agree, as I think would most Leave supporters.

Here's what a report in the Independent says about it.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/last-night-of-the-proms-brexit-protest-eu-flags-bbc-albert-hall-crowdfunded-a7231546.html


And hence some people may react the way the author of the Express piece I linked to did.

If they act on the suggestion in the "Independent" report, however, to have flags which have the Union Flag on one side and the EU flag on the other, I no longer think that a reasonable person would see this as setting up EU support as an alternative to British patriotism and the risk of a negative reaction is much less. In that event I would be much less concerned.
8:45 am
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more