\n<\/p>\n
After Friday prayers last week, Mahmooda Syedain and her husband went shopping for flags, specifically the national flag of Scotland, the blue and white cross of St Andrew.<\/p>\n
The community activist lives in Falkirk, a former iron and steel town midway between Glasgow and Edinburgh where unemployment is rising, and where an anonymous two-floor building tucked behind the local Lidl store has become the focus of the largest asylum hotel protests in Scotland.<\/p>\n
In recent weeks the blue and white Saltire has appeared flying high on lamp-posts around Falkirk and elsewhere across Scotland, from Maryhill and Tollcross in Glasgow to Peterhead and Aberdeen in the north-east.<\/p>\n
Demonstrators hold union jack and scottish flags at anti-immigration protests in Falkirk<\/p>\n
In a direct parallel with the Operation Raise the Colours movement which has co-opted the St George\u2019s cross in England, ownership of the saltire has become a new cultural and political battleground in Scotland.<\/p>\n
This sudden appropriation of Scotland\u2019s national flag to promote anti-immigration activism has shocked politicians, particularly Scottish nationalists. Until now, the saltire was associated with pro-independence marches through city centres where billowing saltires were carried aloft, or the national football and rugby teams.<\/p>\n
And so last Saturday, Syedain draped the saltires she had bought over some crowd barriers as she joined counter-protesters outside the Cladhan hotel, which houses about 90 asylum seekers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were doing it to reclaim our flag,\u201d she says. \u201cIn England the St George\u2019s flag has always been associated with the far right. In Scotland it\u2019s more complicated.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people thought it was about the women\u2019s rugby, and others thought it was to do with the independence movement. The conversation we need to have as a community is: what is your motivation for flying the saltire in Falkirk right now?\u201d<\/p>\n
Counter-protests outside the Cladhan hotel on 30 August with people dancing, holding placards and Scottish flags<\/p>\n
John Swinney, Scotland\u2019s nationalist first minister, was quick to challenge the flag\u2019s use by the right in a pro-independence speech on Thursday. \u201cOur saltire is a flag of welcome \u2013 and refugees are welcome here,\u201d he said. \u201cThe saltire belongs to the people of Scotland,\u201d he told reporters afterwards, \u201cand it\u2019s always been perceived as a flag of welcome, of solidarity and sanctuary\u201d.<\/p>\n
But the meaning of the saltire is contested.<\/p>\n
When Bob Doris, a Scottish National party MSP for Maryhill in Glasgow, where the flags appeared overnight on lamp-posts, accused the far right of \u201chi-jacking\u201d the saltire, a community group responded: \u201cThe flags were not put up by far right \u2013 it was some of your own supporters and friends.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe truth is that the flags were put up as a signal to politicians, like you, to start listening to concerns in your constituency,\u201d wrote the organiser of the local Facebook group No1seems2care.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have wrongly linked the saltire flags in your area with the far right and in doing so you have attached a perception of shame to those who display it. You didn\u2019t do that in [the independence referendum of] 2014 or at your elections Bob.\u201d<\/p>\n
The guerilla flag-flying is endorsed by a loose network of Facebook groups such as this one, which highlight failing public services and escalating household bills. Another, the Tartan Team, which raised flags overnight in a handful of north Glasgow suburbs, said: \u201cImmigration isn\u2019t a problem with us. That\u2019s why it\u2019s a saltire \u2013 to let the SNP know it\u2019s our flag not theirs.\u201d The anger of those protesting outside hotels should instead \u201cbe directed at politicians and councillors who have dodged the main issues this country faces for too long\u201d.<\/p>\n
As in England, for many the flag signifies their demands to put local people first. But council workers tasked with removing them have faced abuse, with officials in one local authority, Aberdeenshire, asking for police protection.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Flags in Maryhill, Glasgow.<\/span> Photograph: Murdo MacLeod\/The Guardian<\/p>\n The group coordinating protests against the Cladhan, Save our Futures and Our Kids\u2019 Futures, say they were galvanised by the rape of a local teenager by an Afghan asylum seeker.<\/p>\n Sadeq Nikzad, 29, was jailed for nine years in June after attacking a 15-year-old girl in Falkirk town centre in October 2023. The group, which also raises concerns about wider public safety, lack of council transparency and digital ID, has been supported by a local Reform councillor while a number of far-right activists have been identified at their protests.<\/p>\n An investigation by the Ferret website found that far-right groups such as the Homeland party, Britain First and Patriotic Alternative have attended similar demonstrations across Scotland this summer, prompting claims they are exploiting concerns over asylum seeker housing to stoke racial tensions.<\/p>\n John Swinney argues that public anger is fuelled by the poverty and social damage caused by the economic austerity introduced by the Conservative UK government more than a decade ago, and then Brexit. \u201cFar too many people are struggling to get by,\u201d he said on Thursday. \u201cYears of flat-lining living standards have taken their toll.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet the \u201cutterly chilling\u201d anti-immigration language being widely used by politicians at Westminster was energising those behind the surge in protests, he said. \u201cPoliticians calling for mass deportations. They demand that we pull out of international human rights treaties.<\/p>\n \u201cNo one seems to be ringing the alarm bell. Well I am.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n <\/span>John Swinney argues that public anger is fuelled by the poverty and social damage caused by austerity and Brexit.<\/span> Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar faced personal racist attacks by Nigel Farage in the Hamilton byelection earlier this year, in which his party triumph over the SNP in Reform\u2019s most significant electoral showing thus far in Scotland with 26% of the vote.<\/p>\n Earlier this week he dismissed Farage as \u201ca chancer who doesn\u2019t understand Scotland\u201d, <\/em>adding he could \u201cunderstand those Scots, that are considering Reform, often feel a genuine sense of hopelessness\u201d and promising to build support \u201cbased on like-minded individuals who want to challenge those noisy minorities, whether it\u2019s the SNP or Reform and Farage\u201d.<\/p>\n Last summer, people of colour living in Scotland warned against complacency after the country escaped the chain reaction of racist violence across England and Northern Ireland set off by the horrific Southport killings last July.<\/p>\n They suggested a combination of inhibiting factors, including there being proportionally fewer black and ethnic minority citizens living there and, until recently, the broad political and media consensus that migration was of benefit given Scotland\u2019s significant demographic challenges.<\/p>\n A year later, the landscape is very different, with recent polling for More in Common suggesting that Reform was neck and neck with Scottish Labour in voting intention for next May\u2019s Scottish parliament election. Immigration appears to be a top concern for Scottish voters for the first time and the Scottish government is facing a refugee crisis in Glasgow, Scotland\u2019s largest city.<\/p>\n Last week, Farage described Glasgow as the \u201casylum capital\u201d of the UK \u2013 it has the highest number of asylum seekers measured by local authority \u2013 and tried to link this with an increase in reports of sexual assault in the city. Rape Crisis Scotland immediately responded that there is \u201cabsolutely no evidence\u201d to substantiate this correlation.<\/p>\n But the city council has been warning for months that homeless refugees are putting \u201cunprecedented pressure\u201d on services.<\/p>\n Stronger housing rights brought in by the Scottish government, such as a statutory duty to accommodate single adult males, has seen a sharp increase in those applying to homelessness services coming from elsewhere in Scotland and the UK. Combined with the UK government\u2019s accelerated asylum processing, which has left many newly recognised refugees homeless, the cost to the city has soared to tens of millions. <\/strong>This week Susan Aitken, Glasgow\u2019s council leader, said things were at \u201cbreaking point\u201d.<\/p>\n Colin Macfarlane, of the Scottish Refugee Council, disputes the narrative that Glasgow is considered a \u201csoft touch\u201d by refugees. \u201cThere are many reasons a person may choose to live here, such as finding established communities, having family already settled here or access to resources.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is incorrect to suggest homelessness provision in Glasgow is \u2018better\u2019 or \u2018softer\u2019 than anywhere else in Scotland. In fact, it currently takes on average two weeks for a person who has become street homeless to enter accommodation.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Susan Aitken, Glasgow\u2019s council leader, said homelessness services in the city were at \u2018breaking point\u2019.<\/span> Photograph: Gerard Ferry\/Alamy<\/p>\n Glasgow has a strong tradition of welcoming refugees. For supporters of immigration, this was encapsulated by the protests on Kenmure Street in Glasgow\u2019s southside when vast crowds prevented immigration enforcement officers from detaining two asylum seekers in May 2021, forcing their release.<\/p>\n Now the mood on the streets is shifting says Tabassum Niamat, a community activist based in the same area. She said the communities she works with, in particular those visibly Muslim women who cover their hair or faces in public, are reporting a rise in micro-aggressions such as staring, verbal and sometimes physical aggression.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a sense in the air that things are ready to explode; this brewing tension all around. You feel the anger, even in the way people look at you now. People are getting sworn at in the streets, and those who are most vulnerable, people for whom English is not their first language, children, women, the elderly, are getting targeted. Day in, day out it\u2019s getting worse.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After Friday prayers last week, Mahmooda Syedain and her husband went shopping for flags, specifically the national flag of Scotland, the blue and white cross of St Andrew. 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