At today’s full South Lanarkshire Council meeting, I was proud to be part of an SNP Group bringing motions on serious matters to tackle inequality and the cost of living. Meanwhile, unionist parties brought nothing but flag-waving Union Jackery.
While your SNP Group wanted to debate one motion to enable “Warm Banks” and another to improve menstruation support, fellow Bothwell and Uddingston Cllr Kenny McCreary (Conservative) believed that proposing the below motion was a better use of Council time.
“This Council notes there is no locally determined protocol governing the use of its flagpoles at Council Headquarters.
The Council therefore requests that a new protocol is developed and brought back to Council for approval, requiring that the Union Flag, Saltire and South Lanarkshire flag be flown from flagpoles at Council Headquarters as a standard practice.
The Council understands that deviation from this standard practice may be permitted for reasons such as commemorations, causes and other events, such as those set out in the Scottish Government Flag Flying Guidance, and those should be detailed within the South Lanarkshire Council Protocol.
The Council also understands that, in very exceptional circumstances, there may on occasion be official requests from organisations and others to fly specific flags on certain days or to reflect particular circumstances and delegates authority to the Chief Executive to consider these requests in consultation with the political Group Leaders and determine whether they should be authorised.
This Council agrees that, until a new protocol is agreed, the national flag of Ukraine should fly as standard alongside the Union Flag and Saltire.”
In response, the SNP Group proposed that we continue following Scottish Government flag policy and donate no more time or effort to the matter.
“I’m astounded by this Tory and Lib Dem motion which just seems completely unnecessary… the Tories ran their election campaign with the slogan ‘Your local priorities, not the SNP’s’. I’d like to ask the Tories how they determined this was a local priority for the residents of South Lanarkshire? Instead of trying to help people during a cost of living crisis designed by their own party, they have brought forward a motion on flags. It seems like Tory priorities rather than those of our communities.
Cllr Ross Clark (SNP, Larkhall)
“We already broadly follow Scottish Government protocol. I don’t see anything wrong with the status quo, I think this is a waste of council time, especially at this time when there’s a cost of living crisis. People are more worried about how they’re going to feed their kids and heat their homes…”
Cllr Andrea Cowan (SNP, Rutherglen Central and North)
The flag policy motion was passed with the support of all three unionist parties (Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem) and council officer time will now be used to develop a South Lanarkshire-specific flag protocol, further wasting council resources.
Cllr Cal Johnston-Dempsey 