Shropshire Council have released a statement declaring their intent to remove the Union Flag and St George's Cross across Shropshire, starting in Shrewsbury. 

Words cannot convey strongly enough how disastrous this is as a policy in terms of social cohesion, given the violence that has already been inflicted upon a citizen as he raised a flag. We call upon Shropshire council to reconsider before they incite more violent attacks upon people who simply want to show pride in their country. 

Let us state firmly: our national flags are not symbols of racism or fascism, and any attempt to besmirch them as such is inflammatory, and incredibly offensive to British people of all races. As British citizens of all ethnicities, we take pride in our flag as a symbol of unity and fairness. 

In recent decades, the British people have come under attack from institutions tasked with protecting us. We have seen thousands of pubs driven out of business by punitive regulations. We have seen countryside sports banned, and the rural way of life decimated. Only last year, farmers were driven to suicide by Labour's inheritance tax grab. Our churches have been sold off, prayer quietly dropped from school assemblies, and Christian festivals ignored, even by our King. 

Last year, a schoolgirl was sent home and told to apologise after attempting to celebrate British culture as part of a culture day at her school. It seems that every culture is to be celebrated other than our own. 

And all that is before we get to clear examples of two-tier justice displayed by the authorities in their reluctance to hold an inquiry into failures to tackle grooming gangs, and in the state's failure to protect women and girls from known criminal migrants. 

The response by the British people to this cultural attack has been meek and, frankly, typically British. It has been to fly flags. Not as a racist statement, not to intimidate, simply to say: we are here. We matter. 

British Lives Matter. 

We are a polite people. We are not interested in intimidatory tactics like those favoured by Antifa. We are not looking for recrimination or retribution. We aren't interested in forcing anyone to share our opinions or our feelings. We simply want the right to be left alone, to show our patriotic pride in peace, and to enjoy our flag when displayed around the county. 

If the council truly feels they are unsafe, we call upon the council to use the money that was going to be spent on removing them to add fixtures to lampposts that would allow the flags to be clipped on and secured. 

Either way, we call on Shropshire Council to drop this frankly silly vendetta against the Union Flag and St George's Cross, and cancel the policy to remove them.

Let us have our flags. That's all we ask.