‘Reclaim our flag’: saltire becomes cultural battleground in Scotland as tensions rise over asylum housing

In recent weeks the blue and white Saltire has appeared flying high on lamp-posts around Falkirk and elsewhere across Scotland. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

After Friday prayers last week, Mahmooda Syedain and her husband went shopping for flags, specifically the national flag of Scotland, the blue and white cross of St Andrew.

The community activist lives in Falkirk, a former iron and steel town midway between Glasgow and Edinburgh where unemployment is rising, and where an anonymous two-floor building tucked behind the local Lidl store has become the focus of the largest asylum hotel protests in Scotland.