Saltires are appearing around Scotland as part of a surge of anti-migrant sentiment. National symbols will always be misused by the far-right, but we don’t have to accept it, writes Rebecca McQuillan

Have you ever seen a street bristling with Saltires? Well take a drive down Calder Road in Edinburgh.

It’s a weird, off-putting sight. In a short stretch of the dualled A71 near Broomhouse, three dozen of them flutter and snap in the autumn wind. The council has been playing a game of cat and mouse with local guerilla nationalists: the flags go up, unauthorised, on lampposts – and the council take them down. Shortly afterwards, they reappear.

What are we to make of these flags? Every hard right politician in the country and a few misguided lefties will claim they are just gentle expressions of patriotism. Some dismayed SNP supporters might try to convince themselves this is just enthusiastic civic nationalism.

Cue hollow laugh. Saltires have long been political but they were never symbols of ethno-nationalism – until now. Inescapably, that is what they are being used as here. Local independent councillor for the area, Ross McKenzie, says he has “no doubt” they are being flown to express anti-migrant sentiment. The co-opting of the Saltire for this purpose is one of the more depressing developments of this depressing decade in

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