![\"Leader](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0_NWP_BEM_051225Cotton_06JPG.jpg\")
Leader of Birmingham City Council, Councillor John Cotton, answers Birmingham Live reader questions(Image: Nick Wilkinson\/Birmingham Live)<\/p>\nCouncil leader John Cotton has called for a clampdown on social media providers who allow racist commentary to go uncheckedLeader of Birmingham City Council, Councillor John Cotton, answers Birmingham Live reader questions(Image: Nick Wilkinson\/Birmingham Live)<\/p>\n
Birmingham residents are facing ‘blatant racism’ that harks back to the worst examples of the 1970s, the city council’s<\/a> leader has warned.<\/p>\n Coun John Cotton<\/a> said he was ‘horrified’ by some of the rhetoric repeated online and in person, in open forums and to people’s faces, in ways that he thought had been consigned to history.<\/p>\n The Labour leader, <\/a>whose own family includes people of different ethnicities, said it was vital poor behaviour was stood against and action taken.<\/p>\n READ MORE:<\/strong> Birmingham council leader answers your questions on bin strikes as reader says ‘just sack them’<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n He revealed he has been directly sent racist commentary on social media ‘that crosses way beyond the line’ but remains visible because of a lack of action by social media providers.<\/p>\n And he said that experience was multiplied many times over for people of colour, and women of colour in particular.<\/p>\n He was asked to comment about concerns about rising racism during a Q&A hosted by BirminghamLive, with questions posed by us and our readers. Data shows rising racism in the city, including Islamophobia and antisemitism.<\/p>\n One anonymous question raised fears that young born and bred Brummies of different ethnicities who were not deemed to be ‘white British’ were talking openly of leaving the city and England because of the hostility being amplified against migrants.<\/p>\n Asked how he felt about leading a city where people of colour felt ‘unwanted’, this was his response:<\/p>\n “I have always said Birmingham<\/a>\u2019s two great strengths are its youth and its diversity. We have always been a diverse city and it is a great thriving city as a result. Long should it remain that.<\/p>\n “I am horrified frankly by some of the emboldened rhetoric of a blatantly racist dialogue and agenda, not just in Birmingham but nationally.<\/p>\n “I know friends of mine who experienced racism in the 70s and 80s who say it is starting to feel very similar again. We have to really stand firm and call out some of this behaviour.<\/p>\n “We have also seen an emboldening through social media, frankly of comments that were once said quietly behind cupped hands in the corner of a pub now getting global reach.<\/p>\n “There\u2019s a responsibility on social media companies to act on this. I have seen some horrific stuff online. I get horrific stuff aimed at my own accounts that crosses way beyond the line but then doesn\u2019t get taken down by service providers.<\/p>\n “We have really got to call this out properly.”<\/p>\n READ MORE: We went to Handsworth and nobody could work out what Robert Jenrick’s problem was<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n READ MORE: Broadcaster offers to show Robert Jenrick the real Handworth – if he can spare the time<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n He spoke of his delight at seeing people standing up against those seeking to divide our communities and said more of that needed to happen.<\/p>\n “I was appalled to see some of our mainstream politicians getting involved,” he added, citing Conservative MP Robert Jenrick\u2019s<\/a> recent critical commentary about Handsworth<\/a>. “It empowered and enabled people and dialogue we should have closed the door on long ago.”<\/p>\n Politicians ‘failing to act against flags’<\/p>\n Several readers spoke of the flags that are now prominently displayed in multiple communities and on major routes across the city as symbols not of unity, but of division. One said politicians were ‘tying themselves in knots’ trying to avoid calling flaggers out as racists and that they needed to be ‘bolder’.<\/p>\n Coun Cotton was asked if he accepted that some of those behind the flagging campaigns locally had been outed as ‘politically motivated and desperate to stir up division’ and that it was not an innocent campaign of ‘patriotism’ to be tolerated.<\/p>\n In response he said: “The first point is there are very clearly people trying to take our national symbols of unity to weaponise them and use them to discriminate and target communities within our city.<\/p>\n “We cannot allow racists to take the Union flag and Cross of St George as their emblem. This is an emblem that should belong to everyone. We have people from all sorts of communities that served in uniform under that flag so it belongs to all of us and I will not allow them to take that away.<\/p>\n “The council\u2019s position on flags is we support people\u2019s right to fly a national symbol on their own property, that is a matter for them, but not when flying the flags on lampposts or other bits of street furniture.<\/p>\n “Our stance is that if the flags are posing a safety hazard, like at Kingstanding Circle recently, when the display was obscuring drivers and pedestrians, we have stepped in to remove those.<\/p>\n “I have to say we have had incidents of council staff being threatened (while working to remove flags) which is totally unacceptable…we will take action immediately where there are issues of public safety and will continue to take them down as part of our ongoing maintenance. We cannot allow the national flag to be used to attack other members of our community.”<\/p>\n He said he was not aware of council staff reporting feeling intimidated when moving around the city and going into heavily flagged areas, as had been reported by some local health organisations. He added: “We take our responsibilities seriously but there\u2019s also a wider moral argument here about not letting our flags be taken by people with an agenda. We have to take them back.”<\/p>\n The council is one of the key signatories to a new document ‘Forward Together for a City Beyond Racism’. A statement issued by the Birmingham City Partnership Board states: “In recent months, Birmingham has come under attack for the very values that make our city what it is – our diversity, our openness and our shared commitment to fairness and inclusion.<\/p>\n “We have witnessed a rise in racism and hate, including assaults on women and hate-motivated acts targeting schools. These acts seek to divide our communities and undermine the unity that has long been Birmingham\u2019s strength.”<\/p>\n They went on: “We call out the rise in racism and the fear it has generated within and between communities. We condemn those seeking to tarnish Birmingham\u2019s reputation and divide us.<\/p>\n “Together, we stand for a Birmingham that is proudly anti-racist, where every community belongs and where our shared future is built on unity, justice and hope.”<\/p>\n Signatories included Coun Cotton on behalf of Birmingham City Council<\/a>, West Midlands mayor Richard Parker, West Midlands Police<\/a>, the Bishop of Birmingham, Birmingham Voluntary Services Council, Birmingham Children’s Trust, St Basils, Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce, Birmingham City University, Birmingham Community Action Network, South & City College, Aston University, Culture Central, Citizens Advice Birmingham, Birmingham Anchor Network and Birmingham Race Impact Group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Council leader John Cotton has called for a clampdown on social media providers who allow racist commentary to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,984,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-657661","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-birmingham-city-council","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115791148266793918","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657661","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=657661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Leader](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0_NWP_BEM_051225Cotton_08JPG.jpg\")
Leader of Birmingham City Council, Councillor John Cotton, answers Birmingham Live reader questions(Image: Nick Wilkinson\/Birmingham Live)<\/p>\n![\"Leader](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0_NWP_BEM_051225Cotton_01JPG.jpg\")
Leader of Birmingham City Council, Councillor John Cotton, answers Birmingham Live reader questions during his visit to our offices(Image: Nick Wilkinson\/Birmingham Live)<\/p>\n![\"Flags](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/3_WhatsApp-Image-2025-10-13-at-095430-1jpeg.jpg\")
Flags have been put back up on Kingstanding Circle after being removed by council workers(Image: Reach)<\/p>\n