‘How dare the nationalists steal our flags?’ asks Tim Farron at party conference in Bournemouth
People who use the union jack or St George’s cross as a form of aggressive nationalism do not love their country, a senior Liberal Democrat has said, as he hit back at a wave of hard-right activism based around the flags.
In a strongly worded speech to a rally opening the party’s annual conference in Bournemouth, Tim Farron, a former leader who now speaks for the party on the environment and rural affairs, said national flags should never be “used to intimidate”.
Farron argued that those who hijacked the flags to try to insist on a narrow definition of Britishness or patriotism, or who used the emblems to “intimidate and terrify people”, did not truly love their country.
“How dare the nationalists steal our flags? How dare they steal what it is to be British, English, Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish?” he said.
