Marks & Spencer denies Union Flag bags have been withdrawn from Northern Ireland
It is “intolerance at its highest level” for a member of the public to have complained to Marks & Spencer that they had been given a carrier bag decorated with the Union Flag, it is claimed.
UUP MLA Doug Beattie was speaking after reports that the company had withdrawn the reusable Union Flag shopping bags after a complaint from a customer who was given one in the Sprucefield store at Lisburn.
However, the company told the News Letter that the Union Flag bags had never been intended for distribution in Northern Ireland in the first place.
A spokesman said the bags intended for use in Northern Ireland had been decorated with a local farm scene.
He added that it had been a simply logistical mistake that Union Flag bags had been sent to NI – and that they had only been sent to the Lisburn store.
When the Sprucefield store ran out of farm scene bags, he said, they handed out a small number of Union Flag bags to be helpful, the News Letter was told.
An M&S spokesperson said: “We offer a range of different carrier bag designs which are popular with our customers in each part of the UK and Republic of Ireland.
“This includes a farmland-based design for Northern Ireland to recognise the wide range of food products we source from there.
“On this occasion, our Lisburn store was mistakenly sent a batch of bags featuring the England design which found their way to a small number of customers when the store ran out of Northern Ireland bags.
“This has since been resolved and customers shopping in our Lisburn store are already back to seeing their more familiar Northern Ireland bags.”
However, noting that different designs are used in different parts of the UK and Republic, UUP MLA Doug Beattie asked what design of bag is supplied in the south.
Marks and Spencer had not supplied this information at the time of going to press.
However, photographs of the Marks and Spencer on Grafton Street in Dublin have shown it previously flying the Irish tricolour between two M&S flags.
Mr Beattie added: “What is the world coming to when people are offended by a plastic bag? It is not very becoming of the so-called new Ireland that is being sold to us.
“In fact it is just intolerance at its highest level. It is trivia and petulance.
“The reality is where people talk about a new Ireland the question is asked – 'would they accommodate Britishness?'
“The reality is we have never been shown that this would be the case.
“They would stop and deny many things which are British, including the expression of it through our national flag or other national emblems.
“So that concept of a new Ireland is seen a nonsense. They know it's a nonsense, and unionists know it's a nonsense, but they'll keep talking it up, knowing full well that they're not going to achieve it anyway.
“But even if they did, it clearly would not accommodate unionist culture.”