{"id":489504,"date":"2025-10-10T23:04:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T23:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/489504\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T23:04:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T23:04:13","slug":"first-minister-john-swinney-i-wont-have-the-saltire-redefined-by-anyone-else","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/489504\/","title":{"rendered":"First Minister John Swinney: &#8216;I won&#8217;t have the Saltire redefined by anyone else&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>First Minister John Swinney says he won\u2019t have the Saltire \u201credefined by anyone else\u201d amid ongoing anti-immigration protests in Scotland. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In recent months, anti-immigration campaign groups have raised the national flag across Scotland as part of a UK-wide protest called \u201cRaise the Colours\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The raising of the flags has coincided with demonstrations against housing asylum seekers in hotels.<\/p>\n<p>Stand Up To Racism have launched counterprotests at a number of events.<\/p>\n<p>Police Scotland have made a number of arrests at protests in recent months.<\/p>\n<p>Local authorities in Aberdeenshire and Falkirk among others have removed the flags on safety grounds, while other councils have discouraged residents from putting them up.<\/p>\n<p>Council staff have allegedly faced abuse and threats when removing them.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/news.stv.tv\/scotland\/council-staff-threatened-as-they-remove-flags-from-lampposts\" tabindex=\"-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"288\" height=\"216\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/90d832546159477b5dff7d06d06fe304-1756991288-288x216.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"\"  \/> <\/a><\/p>\n<p>In an interview with STV News, Swinney said: \u201cI\u2019ve always felt the Saltire is a flag of welcome and inclusion in Scotland and that\u2019s how I\u2019ve always felt about it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think that\u2019s how most people feel about it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI certainly think that\u2019s how most people waving the Saltire at the Scotland game last night felt about it as well. That\u2019s what matters to me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI won\u2019t have it redefined by anyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/628a01d8f0bc0940adfda0829c63394a-2.jpg\" width=\"1180\" height=\"666\"   alt=\"The First Minister said the Saltire represents 'inclusion'.\"\/>iStockThe First Minister said the Saltire represents \u2018inclusion\u2019. iStock<\/p>\n<p>When asked about those using it as part of anti-immigration movements, he added: \u201cI don\u2019t approve of it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Saltire represents the coming together of people in Scotland.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Asked about NHS waiting times ahead of the winter months, Swinney added: \u201cWe want to have accident emergency turnaround times much faster.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s about making sure that we take all of the steps in the hospital system to make sure that can be possible by reducing delayed discharge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>STV News is now on WhatsApp<\/p>\n<p>Get all the latest news from around the country<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whatsapp.com\/channel\/0029VaCESJzKgsNvKKNOYO2r\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">      Follow STV News <\/a>Follow STV News on WhatsApp<\/p>\n<p>Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1758059248_2_whatsapp-qr.png\" alt=\"WhatsApp channel QR Code\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First Minister John Swinney says he won\u2019t have the Saltire \u201credefined by anyone else\u201d amid ongoing anti-immigration protests&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5009],"tags":[748,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-489504","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scotland","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-scotland","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115352376723405334","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}