Former England football star Gary Neville has blamed “middle-aged white men” for diving Britain in the wake of the Manchester synagogue attack – and admitted he “instantly” took down a union flag. The ex-manager turned pundit claimed the UK public is “being turned on each other”, in a video posted on social media.

Mr Neville, a Labour supporter who was captain of Manchester United, spoke about seeing flags in the city, and also highlighted Manchester’s Jewish community. He said: “I was driving to Salford City, going down Littleton Road seeing probably 50-60 Union Jack flags. Then on the way back I went down the parallel road, which is Bury New Road, which has got the Jewish community right at its heart and they’re out on the streets, defiant, not hiding or in fear.

“I just kept thinking as I was driving home last night that we’re all being turned on each other and the division that’s being created is absolutely disgusting. Mainly created by angry middle-aged white men who know exactly what they’re doing.”

Mr Neville. who is now involved in property development, said: “Funnily enough on one of my development sites last week there was a Union Jack flag put up and I took it down instantly.

“Some people might be watching this and thinking: ‘Gary you’re not really patriotic.’ I’ve played for my country 85 times, I love my country, I love Manchester and I love England, but I’ve been building in this city for 15-20 years and there’s no one put a Union Jack flag up in the last 15-20 years so why do you need to put one up now?

“Because quite clearly it’s sending a message to everybody that there is something you don’t like.`

“The Union Jack flag used in a negative fashion is not right and I’m a proud supporter of England, of Great Britain, of our country and will champion it anywhere in the world as one of the greatest places to live, but I think we need to check ourselves, check ourselves and start to think about bringing ourselves back to a neutral point because we’re being pulled right and left and we don’t need to be pulled right and left at all.”

And he blamed Brexit for dividing the country, saying: “Brexit has had a devastating effect on this country and the messaging is getting dangerous, extremely dangerous.

“All these idiots that are out there spreading hate speech in any form and abuse in any form, we must stop promoting them. We must stop elevating our voices towards them and it needs to stop now and get back to a country of love, of peace, of harmony and become a team again.”

In a speech welcoming delegates to the Conservative Party conference on Sunday, Mrs Badenoch paid tribute to the victims of the “horrific and despicable” attack at the Heaton Park synagogue last week, saying: “The strength of Manchester’s Jewish community is humbling.”

She said: “On Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, Jews take time for introspection to ask themselves, where have we gone wrong in the past, and what do we need to do to be better in the future?

“These are questions we urgently need to ask ourselves as a nation.

“Extremism has gone unchecked. You see it manifest in the shameful behaviour on the streets of our cities, protests which are in fact carnivals of hatred directed at the Jewish homeland.

“You hear it in the asinine slogans. You hear it in ‘from the river to the sea’, as if the homes, the lives of millions of Jewish people should be erased. You hear it in ‘globalise the Intifada’, which means nothing at all if it doesn’t mean targeting Jewish people for violence.

“We have tolerated this in our country for too long and we have tolerated the radical Islamist ideology that seeks to threaten not only Jews, but all of us of all faiths and none who want to live in peace.

“So, the message from this conference, from this party, from every decent and right-thinking person in this country must be that we will not stand for it anymore.”