Preface:

I wrote this post when I was subject to Election rules, which meant that my election agents would have borne the responsibility for anything inflammatory I might have said and published. I am no longer under election rules. This needs tp be said and I can now publish it.

Beckenham has been a Conservative seat since time immemorial but due to boundary changes is one of the Labour Party’s target seats for the next General Election. Just before I was confirmed as the Liberal Democrat candidate for the Shortlands council by-election seat, and a few hours before my official acceptance as London Assembly Constituency candidate for Bexley&Bromley, this leaflet from Labour came through the door. We looked at it and John said “That looks like it comes from the Reform Party.” So, foolishly in hindsight, I tweeted what he said. Nothing new. I’ve been quite vocal on the socials in the past how I am now made uncomfortable by the current ubiquity of the Union Flag. It was all over Victoria Station; all over food; all over M&S carrier bags. Politicians now make their public addresses standing next to the Union flag lest they appear insufficiently patriotic. As I said, I’ve shared this view lots of times and loads of people have publicly agreed with me.

I had a brief and courteous exchange with one of my Archers followers who talked about wanting to reclaim the Union Flag from the right wing, racist xenophobes who have been enjoying their place in the sun since Brexit.  I have known a couple of people who’ve had them all over their house, presumably because they can’t bear to be parted from it for a second. I can understand that point of view, and it’s not new to me, but it shows that there is something to reclaim it from. I do think my feelings are equally valid and I’m happy to discuss them.

I was not prepared for the onslaught of spite. An erstwhile Labour-supporting Twitter follower decided to call my point of view “stupid,” giving no reason for that reaction. Then she Quote Tweeted it with all caps and precipitated a pile-on of over a thousand people (when I sropped counting) commenting on my original tweet. Plenty supported my view, it’s true but generally there erupted an unholy alliance of racists telling me to leave and go elsewhere if I didn’t like the flag, and Labour supporters, some of whom I’d conversed with for years, whom I considered friends but who suddenly had abandoned any attempt at insight and empathy. I muted the conversation, mindful that I had an early start the following morning and needed a good night’s sleep. Overnight it received about 2.5 million views.

This was tribalism at its worst and apparently this is typical behaviour towards a LibDem woman of colour who has the temerity to speak out about something. So much for free speech. Rather, it’s free speech until you say something which which they don’t agree which then justifies a wholly disproportionate ad hominem attack. It’s so hurtful because if I sat down to lunch with these people, we’d probably agree on most things and here they were, so quick to turn on me. Labour are supposed to be a party with community values but this was sheer spite, harnessed.

The next morning a LibDem colleague messaged me, offering support, and then I took a call from LibDem HQ telling me that they were monitoring a story in the Daily Express about my tweet and that I should not comment. Nobody had asked me for permission to include my details and picture in their article, nor spoken to me to seek my view. I didn’t bother reading the article, I mean, it’s the Express, but I understand that it called me a Lefty snob. Ironic, isn’t it, that this Labour supporter contributed to hits on a right wing tabloid’s website? I locked my Twitter account for the first time in 15 years on there. I was careful to behave calmly and properly in my exchanges, mindful that I had responsibilities towards my local team and, more widely, my party but of course she was not operating under any such constraints.

Later in the campaign, at a local hustings event, a representative of the Reform party stood up, pointed a finger and, dripping with malevolence, quoted the Daily Express article asked whether I was fit to be a candidate if the Union Flag made me shudder. I would have happily answered the question, explaining my point of view, explaining the history and perhaps giving the people in that room a perspective that they might not previously have appreciated, but he was shouted down: it seems that any discussion of racism and its impact is considered too embarrassing and impolite. After all, we are all NICE people here.

Days later some of the more excitable Conservative councillors picked up on this story too, as well as some confected outrage about the fact that I have a second home in Norfolk. Apparently my membership of a local Facebook group signifies that I am not interested in the people of Shortlands. There was no mention, of course, of my longstanding membership of Bromley and Beckenham groups. This is how people twist the truth. I remonstrated against the public lie-by-omission about me but of course the old cliche about a lie being half way around the world before the truth can get its shoes on holds. A prominent local Conservative jumped onto the discussion and called into question my patriotism with a screaming tweet about how I dared stand as a Shortlands councillor. The tweet was rather unwise as it showed the world something about her temperament that she might not previously have wanted us to know but that’s just my opinon, and that’s already been discounted.

I have been told that I shoiuld rise above it but I have been told all my life to “just ignore them. That’s what they want, a rise.” As we know, ignoring a bully never makes them go away. A dignified silence just makes things less uncomfortable for the other people in the room. I didn’t care much about the Norfolk thing, which concerned only me and was demonstrably untrue, but when my “patriotism,” my love of my home was called into question, it was a racist dogwhistle for all immigrants and people of colour and I felt I had to push back against it on behalf of anyone who looks to me to represent people of colour. Of course I can’t do that. I represent only my view, but it’s widely-held.

I have come to expect the racism. I know it’s a Them problem. Though it’s upsetting – and people to whom this never happens do a lot of pearl-clutching over it – I’m used to it. The racists, glorying in their rabid ignorance are easy to dismiss, but how quick many of these Labour people were to turn on me! It wasn’t just the Labour tribalism, but the complete lack of empathy for those of us who remember from the 1970s the National Front thugs who wrapped themselves in the Union flag and set our fences on fire; being spat at by a curious mixture of punk and nationalism; the NF sign with union flag carved into a table at my local pub quiz; the union flag stickers that appear every election time with calls for forced repatriation since that time and before. Put this into the context of today’s right wing targeting of immigrants and their descendants for vitriol and maybe you can understand why this makes us shudder. But of course, without empathy or any appreciation of the history if you’re not affected by it, you don’t see it. That David Lammy, of all people, wrote an article in the Sun exhorting us all to embrace the flag shows that they recognise that there’s a problem, yet they turn on me for feeling the way I do! One would have expected Labour supporters to understand this but apparently friends are easily sacrificed to the mob when there’s an election looming. Strange bedfellows, these people make: the racists and the right wing tabloid press and people so crazed by loyalty to their tribe that any humanity they might have had is thrown out of the window.

That quote from Dr Angelou comes to mind. These antagonists have shown me who they really are and I believe them. And I no longer consider them friends. So when I’ve summoned the strength to look at the replies to this post I’ll be blocking, unfollowing, reporting wherever necessary. And I’ll remember who sacrificed me and who supported me.

As a postscript, I was sent this article (though I am being careful NOT to post this until after the election on 2nd May). I’ve been saying this for years. Not just me, then.