Sir Keir Starmer may lack popular appeal but he’s not silly. That’s why he has declared his support for the St George’s flag in the row about two councils in Muslim-majority areas, the latest Tower Hamlets, taking down both the English flag and the Union Jack.
The PM is, declared a spokesman, all for patriotism – indeed, only a prime minister with a death wish wouldn’t be, let alone a PM with a Morgan McSweeny at his elbow. But it’s interesting, the context in which he supports the English flag.
Asked about it, his spokesman said, “Absolutely. We put up English flags all around Downing Street every time the English football team — women’s and men’s — are out trying to win games for us.”
So there we have it. The English flag is absolutely fine in the context of football. Pretty much no one questions it. The big question is whether and why it should be problematic in almost any other context.
That it is contested is not up for debate. Both the flag of St George – the red cross on white – and the Union Jack have been put up by people in Birmingham and Tower Hamlets recently – prior to the anniversary of VJ Day. In both cases, the local council has taken them down.
Tower Hamlets is led by Lutfur Rahman of the pro-Palestinian Aspire party, and it was festooned with English flags over the weekend, including in Canary Wharf, the scene of earlier demonstrations about hotels taking in migrants.
There was an indignant response when footage was posted online, which showed some of its workmen removing England flags. Palestinian flags, by contrast, had been allowed to remain on lampposts for more than six months, so as not to “destabilise community cohesion”.
Birmingham, where the posting of English and Palestinian flags seems roughly to correspond to white and Muslim neighbourhoods had a more amusing excuse from the Labour-run council; it maintained that the flags were a dangerous distraction for pedestrians and motorists.
So, our old friend, health and safety is brought into play. But not, it would seem, in the case of the flying of Pride flags, which those of a socially conservative disposition don’t care for. They’re fine. Remember the time of the Brexit referendum, when EU flags were weaponised, and displayed as a marker of anti-Brexit sentiment? We’re in that kind of territory now, except with other flags.
There has obviously been a backlash. A group from Weoley Castle in Birmingham has raised more than £10,000 to buy new and replacement England and Union flags for those removed by the council, and a campaign in York has raised £2,500. I’d be surprised if the same thing didn’t happen in parts of London.
The question is why this should be an issue in the first place. Every country flies its flag on public buildings and in public spaces and unless the territory is actually contested – I expect the Russian flag is all over Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine – it’s not an issue; it’s a marker of mild patriotism.
Yet, outside international football tournaments, the England flag (to a greater extent than the Union Jack) is seen as associated with right-wing politics and with English nationalism, which is itself seen as problematic on the liberal end of the political spectrum.
But English nationalism isn’t toxic, or shouldn’t be, any more than any other kind. If it’s been taken on by parties on the right, then you might say that’s the fault of those who didn’t fly it and who gave this potent symbol to others.
And for councils in Muslim-majority areas to treat the English or UK flags as somehow problematic is to raise some explosive issues about loyalty to the country and its symbols.
Earlier this week Birmingham Council projected the colours of Pakistan and later India onto its public library to commemorate 79 years of their independence (can’t wait for the 80th next year); the obvious question is why this was allowed but Union or England flags were taken down.
Plainly, this is an area where Labour will need to go out of its way to emphasise where it stands, and not by resorting to the party’s traditional ensign, the Red Flag. The Irishman, Morgan McSweeny, has taken on board that the party simply cannot be too keen on support for patriotism or law and order if it’s to have a hope of winning back its former heartlands. So expect to see Sir Keir proudly embrace his inner Englishman in the future, even outside football.
We may yet see a lot more of the English flag if the UK becomes more decentralised. Nicolas Sturgeon, in her memoir, Frankly, said that “I predict that in 20 years, perhaps sooner, the UK in its current form will no longer exist…An independent Scotland, a more autonomous Wales and a reunified Ireland will join England, enjoying the home rule it will enjoy as a result, in a new British isles confederation of nations.” (I don’t quite understand that; why should Scotland have independence but England just home rule?) Whatever, if this should happen, there’ll be a lot more England flags around; indeed, in Reform-run areas, this will probably happen anyway.
The red cross on white has been the flag of England since the fourteenth century, which gives it a much longer heritage than the Union Jack. But according to the historian of the Union Jack, the academic, Nick Groom, turning national flags into the property of a political movement is a perversion of their purpose.
As he says, “it is the responsibility of citizens to use symbols such as flags as shared representations of diversity and respect. The moment that they are appropriated by one exclusive faction, we have all failed. We should never let extremists set the agenda concerning what local, regional, and national symbols we use: they are common property, and it is quite wrong that local authorities should legislate concerning the use of flags (through banning) in ways that encourage them to be politicised.
“We have rights to communal symbols, and with rights come responsibilities - and so I do not think that Tower Hamlets Borough Council is acting in a responsible way: they are playing into the hands of the extremists who aim to limit the association of the cross of St George to marginal political prejudice. The left has a history of abdicating responsibility, wringing its hands, and allowing the far right to set the agenda - this is another example.”
The trouble is, taking down flags is as symbolic an act as putting them up and may be a lot more explosive.
Melanie McDonagh is a columnist at The London Standard
