Two men tried to plant flag of St George in centre circle
Far-right group calls it protest against Neville’s ‘treachery’
Salford’s League Two match against Oldham was briefly disrupted when two men tried to plant a flag of St George inside the centre circle at the Peninsula Stadium.
The men entered the field during the first half wearing white hoodies displaying the message “Gary Neville is a traitor” before being removed by stewards and police.
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Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, was doing an interview round for the Conservatives this morning, and Miatta Fahnbulleh, the faith and communities minister, was on the air on behalf of the government. They were both asked about the latest development in the flag phenomenon – the former footballer turned property developer Gary Neville saying that he took down a union flag flying at one of his building sites because he felt it was being used in a “negative fashion”.
Asked if Neville (a Labour supporter) had a point, Fahnbulleh told ITV’s Good Morning Britain:
I think he’s really right, that there are people who are trying to divide us at the moment …
I spent a lot of time going around our communities, talking to people. People are ground down. We’ve had a decade-and-a-half in which living standards haven’t budged and people have seen their communities held down. And you will get people trying to stoke division, trying to blame others, trying to stoke tension.
I think people that put up flags, the vast majority of people that do, do so for perfectly reasonable patriotic reasons. And I think reclaiming our flag as a flag of unity and decency and tolerance, which is the way most people see our flag, is a very positive thing.
So I’m afraid I really cannot agree with the comments that he’s made.
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Gary Neville has revealed he removed a union flag from one of his Manchester development sites because it was being “used in a negative fashion”, as he urged his followers to question what it means to be patriotic.
In a video posted on Friday, the day after a deadly attack at a Manchester synagogue, the former footballer turned property developer said he believed that “we’re all being turned on each other”, attributing much of the blame for the divide to “angry, middle-aged white men … who know exactly what they’re doing”.
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In June, as the RMT union launched what has become an ongoing series of strikes, Keir Starmer ordered Labour frontbenchers and shadow ministerial aides not to join picket lines. This infuriated leftwing Labour MPs and some union leaders, notably Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite.
At one point it looked as if there might be a huge row at conference about whether shadow ministers should or should not be allowed to join picket lines. But, in an interview with the Today programme this morning, Graham suggested that a truce of sorts has been agreed – even if the two sides do not entirely see eye to eye.
My issue about this … isn’t necessarily around one person on a picket line because, quite frankly, that isn’t the issue. The issue is the mood music [ordering shadow ministers not to join picket lines] suggests. It suggests a mood music that being on the picket line is somehow a bad thing. It’s a naughty step situation.
The party who is there to stick up for workers should not give the impression – that’s the problem, it gives the impression – that they are saying picket lines are not the place to be. And I think that it was unfortunate. I think it was a mistake. I think, to be honest with you, Labour knows it was a mistake. And I don’t actually think it’s holdable.
When people go on strike it is a last resort at the end of negotiations. And I can quite understand how people are driven to that … I support the right of individuals to go on strike, I support the trade unions doing the job that they are doing in representing their members.
I’m incredibly disappointed that as delegates we’ve been excluded from this key part of the conference’s democratic process.
This is an unprecedented move silencing members’ voices. Our CLP sent us here to Liverpool to promote our motion on public ownership and a Green New Deal, but we’ve been unfairly denied that right.
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