Neville said he had left his home on Friday morning to ’50 or 60′ Union flags in north Manchester, which prompted him to speak out on social media.
‘I just kept thinking as I was driving home last night that we’re all being turned on each other,’ he said.
‘The division that’s being created is absolutely disgusting. Mainly created by angry middle-aged white men who know exactly what they are doing.
‘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 that’s not very patriotic.”
‘I played for my country 85 times. I love my country. I love Manchester. 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, so why do you need to put one up now?
‘Quite clearly, it’s sending a message to everybody that there’s something you don’t like. Union Jack flag being used in a negative fashion is not right.
‘I’m a proud supporter of England, Great Britain, of our country and will champion it anywhere in the world as being one of the greatest places to live.
‘But I think we need to 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.
‘I’ve always said about I’ve played in a football team with a group of people from Manchester, Ireland, Wales, Scotland. But also people from Africa, Asia, America, Europe and we were a beautiful team, united as one.
‘Brexit has had a devastating impact on this country and the messaging is getting 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.
‘It needs to stop now and get back to a country of love, of peace, of harmony and become a team again.’
