People are attaching the St George's and Union flags to lamp posts to "express solidarity with each other" and show they are not "embarrassed about being British", a leading peer has said.
Baroness Fox of Buckley also criticised what she described as "a kind of form of snobbery that's basically anti working class" among the UK's ruling class towards ordinary Britons.
And this in turn led to an inability of the Establishment to comprehend why Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is so popular among voters.
Lady Fox - an independent peer who as Claire Fox was a former Brexit Party MP - said that elements of the Establishment had a "developed a kind of dehumanised version of what people are. They just cannot penetrate into their mind why anyone would put up a flag".
TRENDING
Stories
Videos
Your Say
She told GB News' Chopper's Political Podcast: "They don't understand that people are longing to belong to the country that they are part of...
"There's a kind of form of snobbery that's basically anti working class, as we would have understood it.
"They don't understand like why Nigel Farage is so popular.
"They kind of look at him and they think, 'oh, he's such a kind of uncouth type, why would anyone like him'.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
Claire Fox told GB News' Chopper's Political Podcast: 'They don't understand that people are longing to belong to the country that they are part of'
|GB NEWS
"In recent weeks communities across England have been tying the St George's flag and the Union flag to monuments and buildings.
Lady Fox, 65, said: "It's become popular because it's a positive thing that you can do to demonstrate that you shouldn't be ignored and that actually you're not embarrassed about being British."
Lady Fox said that "ordinary people are trying to fight back" against critics who associate the St George's flag with far-right politics.
She explained: "It's just a very positive thing. Putting the flags up is a way for people to express some form of solidarity with each other.
Lady Fox said that 'ordinary people are trying to fight back' against critics who associate the St George's flag with far-right politics
|GB NEWS
"And a lot of the people who are involved in putting up the flags are also saying 'we want to rebuild the civic buildings in our community and actually say things like 'we also help out the local food bank, or we're helping do litter pick ups' and so on and so forth.
"So there's something about those people who've been marginalised and thrown out to the side of society, treated like dirt, basically, and looked down on saying, no, we want to rebuild a pride in the place that we're from - to take back control."
Listen or watch Chopper's Political Podcast on GB News YouTube channel or wherever you get your podcasts
More From GB News