SCOTTISH Greens councillors in Glasgow have called for the Union flag to no longer be flown on royal birthdays.
The current policy sees the Union flag raised over the City Chambers on a number of royal birthdays, including those of the Princess of Wales, King Charles III, Queen Camilla and Princess Anne, according to Glasgow City Council’s website.
The Scottish Greens group are to propose a motion to call for this policy to be dropped and to instead introduce a policy to raise the flag of countries home to cities which Glasgow is twinned with, councillor Dan Hutchison for the Govan ward told The National.
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He said he didn’t know anybody he could ask who would know when the King’s birthday was.
“I’m a republican, I always have been a republican, but I think it’s probably fair to say from my perspective that the Queen was probably a bit different and there was quite a lot of respect for the longevity that she had in the role,” he said.
The councillor added: “But now, nobody really cares. Charles (below) has never had a great reputation and it’s not really 21st-century Scotland.
“Our thinking is Glasgow has always tried to be an internationalist city so we’re trying to move back to that rather than the royal stuff I don’t think anyone cares about.
“Glasgow has large diasporas from these countries. Our perspective is they’re more important than some unelected people that live down in England somewhere so we should celebrate the people that live here, the people that we work with day in day out rather than folk that fly in every so often, do very little and live on taxpayer money.”
Glasgow is currently twinned with the following cities:
- Turin – Italy
- Nuremberg – Germany
- Lahore – Pakistan
- Mykolaiv – Ukraine
- Havana – Cuba
- Bethlehem – Palestine
- Marseilles – France
- Dalian – China
It was previously twinned with Rostov-On-Don in Russia although this was suspended following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Hutchison further explained that the group will call for a public consultation with the Chinese diaspora in Glasgow on flying their flag given the country’s political climate.
He added that the meeting where the motion could be heard will take place next Thursday although he says it is likely to be low down on the agenda.
“Hopefully it gets heard then but you never know in politics. We haven’t had any discussions with any other groups about it just yet though.”
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It's not the first instance of councillors trying to distance their city from the royals, as we told of a similar motion in Edinburgh last year ahead of the coronation.
The Greens group in Edinburgh said that the Duke of Edinburgh's title should not be formally recognised by the Scottish capital.
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