Picture – Flag still aloft on lamppost outside St Fergus’ Primary School in Paisley, Renfrewshire – 10 Oct 2025 – Credit: @gideoncable
The Leader of Renfrewshire Council has confirmed that there are no efforts being made to engage with core issues behind recent flag raising activities in the area.
Councillor Iain Nicolson, when approached for an interview on the council response to the flag raising, said it is: “run of the mill: ‘people put stuff up we take stuff down’, as far as the council is concerned.”
Their only worries are health and safety and the integrity of the street furniture as it has not been designed to take the extra load added by flags.
When pressed about efforts to engage with the flag-raisers about issues they are trying to highlight, Councillor Nicolson ignored the questions. He confirmed the only action the council was taking was focused on the removal of flags.
He dismissed the topic, concluding: “Yes, we are that boring.”
Local people don’t see it that way.
Terry McTernan, a community development practitioner/activist in Ferguslie and former chair of the Community Council, said: “The raising of the flags was about disenfranchised, angry working class – sometimes impoverished – people, feeling that they’re not being listened to. Their needs are not been met properly and this is their opportunity to express that anger or express that frustration.”
“They deploy the only tactics that they know, which is perhaps abusive language, or nonconformity, or civil disobedience. In this case: flag raising.”
“Rather than seeing this as a fantastic opportunity to positively engage and mediate between the different communities within the community, [the council] see this as an opportunity to be heavy-handed”.
Letters sent by the council to residents requesting the removal of flags were seen as tone-deaf and indifferent. It led to the expansion of flag raising from a single street in Ferguslie to ‘every street being adorned with flags’, according to Mr. McTernan.
Video – Terry McTernan, Community development practioner/activist – 28 Oct 2025 – Credit: @gideoncable
He acknowledges there is a ‘backdrop of the rise of the right’ which does ‘encourage the few racists we have to come out of the woodwork’ but he maintains for the majority of people within the area it is about disenfranchisement and frustration. He says labelling it as ‘racist’ allows the council to ‘side-step accountability’ and not engage fully with local concerns.
“It all started off with three young guys putting flags up in their own street. I know these three guys personally. I know that they’re not racist.”
“Normally, young men, particularly in deprived communities like Ferguslie Park, are completely disenfranchised, completely disengaged from local democracy.”
“For me that’s the exciting part. We now have three men who would ordinarily be labelled as disengaged or ‘they’re not interested’, and all of a sudden they became interested. That’s then what makes it incumbent on folks like myself to make sure that that energy, that enthusiasm, that motivation to get involved, is channelled in the correct way.”
Mr. McTernan sees this as something councillors also need to listen to and leverage. He concludes: “[The council] need to completely change direction when it comes to their type of engagement”
“It’s not just Ferguslie Park that thinks the council are disingenuous, it’s a number of working-class communities”
“It needs to engage with community development organisations – anchor organisations – in a meaningful and respectful way. This, ‘we’re the Council, we know better’ is just for the birds!”
