Boris Johnson savages Keir Starmer over Union flags – ‘not patriotic’ | Politics | News
Boris Johnson has slammed the Prime Minister for his reaction to people displaying British flags and Union Jacks. He said on Twitter that Keir Starmer’s Labor Party “does not share their patriotism”.
The former Prime Minister wrote: Daily Mail He said he appreciated those who raised the flag and said he had “nothing against these impromptu displays of national feeling.” During the summer months, flags began to be hung in public spaces, on street lamps and signposts. While those who hang them say they are merely symbols of patriotism, others believe they are fear-mongering tools used by the far-right to stoke anti-immigration sentiment and other tensions. Starmer told The Guardian in September that the St George flag “represents our diverse country” and that he would not tolerate people being “intimidated on our streets because of their background or the color of their skin”. He also told BBC Radio 5 Live: “I’m very encouraging of flags. I think they’re patriotic and a great symbol of our nation.”
“I don’t think they should be devalued and belittled. I think sometimes when they’re used for purely divisive purposes, it actually devalues the flag.”
Johnson said that they gave the winter months a “festive, almost jubilee atmosphere” and told his children that these were just “Long live England! Long live England!” He said he said there was a way to say it.
He added that people were hoisting British and English flags because the Labor Government could not be trusted with “simple and unsophisticated patriotism”.
Johnson also criticized the Government’s cancellation of the previous Tory government’s plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda at a cost of £200,000 per person, according to the Migration Observatory.
He said Starmer and other “left-wing lawyers” saw it as a point of “positive national pride” that the UK legal system prevented refugees from being sent home, because “it shows that we are better, more humane than other countries by a margin”.
The former prime minister concluded: “That’s why the flags still fly – not out of pride, but out of despair at not being heard.”
