Tower Hamlets Council has begun the removal of Palestinian flags from council owned buildings and properties after receiving hundreds of complaints from residents.
Mayor of Tower Hamlets, Lutfur Rahman, announced on Twitter that he had taken the “difficult decision” to remove the flags from public lampposts and council buildings following advice from Tower Hamlets Council Chief Executive Steve Halsey.
He said the decision was made as it has become clear in recent weeks that the borough is in the “spotlight” and has been on the “receiving end of significant government and media attention.”
He also stated: “Although these flags are an understandable expression of solidarity, I now feel they are being used to unfairly attack the people of the borough and further the Islamophobic narrative.”
The Muslim majority borough has recently been described as a ‘no-go’ area by senior Conservative MP Paul Scully, while the council has been under scrutiny from the government with an ongoing inspection over the upcoming months.
Until now, the council had originally decided against removing the flags, as they believed “it could destabilise community cohesion.”
The decision reversal came after the council was threatened with legal action by UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), which said that the flags were “unlawful” and violated section 224 of the Town and Country Planning Act and had left many Jewish residents distressed by the “divisive” flags.
The council has also previously revealed that since October 2023, it received nearly 300 complaints about flags, graffiti or stickers related to the Gaza conflict.
After liaison with the Metropolitan Police and the Tension Monitoring Group (TMG), the council said: “The increasing focus on the issue, coupled with some unfair and divisive sentiment about our borough and its communities in recent weeks, has meant that the issue of flags has become part of a wider negative discourse used by some to misrepresent Tower Hamlets and our residents.”
In a statement posted to Twitter, Rahman rejected that the flags are “symbols of division” and rather described them as “symbols of solidarity and sympathy for those enduring extreme suffering in Gaza.”
He expressed understanding that “those who have erected the flag around the borough have done so in line with the borough’s strong tradition of solidarity.”
The mayor has received backlash from residents on Twitter/X, where some users have expressed “disappointment” in the mayor and that “giving in” to the pressure encourages islamophobia.
The mayor emphasised that the recent rise in Islamophobia in society makes Tower Hamlets a “target”, which has the largest Muslim population of any local authority area in the UK at 39.9 per cent.
Campaign groups have reported a 335 per cent surge in anti-Muslim hate incidents across the UK following Hamas’s attack on Israel in October last year.
Rahman also said: “Highlighting Islamophobia in this context does not mean I am also not alert to a rise in antisemitism and other forms of racism.”
