From Falkirk to Aberdeen, the Scottish flag has become a contested emblem in protests around migration
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.
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.
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.
In a direct parallel with the Operation Raise the Colours movement which has co-opted the St George’s cross in England, ownership of the saltire has become a new cultural and political battleground in Scotland.
