I am worried about Ed Miliband at the moment. In 2014 he was reported to be “angrier than he has ever been”. This was because Emily Thornberry, now spoken of as a potential future leader of the party, did a bad tweet. It was a photo of a house in Rochester with three England flags and a white van. This was said to be contemptuous and snobby, and for this she resigned as shadow attorney general. She said it was “a remarkable image”, so she took the picture – to which one can reply that she needs to get out more, even in her own constituency.
Still, she apologised, and I am only bringing it up because just four years ago not to embrace this flag was seen as giving succour to Ukip, as being “disrespectful”. Islingtonites were not to go around deploring the working classes! I trust that Ed has now calmed down and Emily will be in full facepaint for Saturday, ready for Ingerland.
I don’t know if “football’s coming home”, or what this even means. But I do know that my home is surrounded by English flags, proudly displayed in ways that they would not have been a few years ago. Most people want England to do well. Even my indifference is wavering – they seem to be a likable bunch. You have to be an extreme grouch, intent on making points about foreign policy on social media, not to get behind them. But there are always those who swathe themselves in the bubble wrap of moral superiority because patriotism is for little people. No one cares though – it’s like thinking boycotting Love Island is a blow against heteronormativity.
Nonetheless, I am from a generation that has very bad associations with the England flag. I am not sure I had ever seen one until I moved to London in the late 1970s, and it meant nothing but trouble and danger, in the form of fascists, skinheads and violent racists.
Before Ken Livingstone went mouldy he used to organise wonderful GLC events, one of which was interrupted by sieg-heiling flag wavers. It was scary.
So when Britpop wrapped itself in the union jack, I was still wary. During the 1990s, we wondered if the flag could be reappropriated so easily. “There ain’t no black in the union jack,” as the academic Paul Gilroy said, and indeed much the same can be said of the whole Britpop phenomenon.
I was astonished to see the writer Paul Mason tweet a picture of himself with the England flag painted on his face – as he has written articles saying he rejects Englishness as an identity. When challenged by former Labour MP John Denham, Mason gnomically tweeted: “My ethnicity is British – my nationality proletarian.” Okey dokey. Britishness is not an ethnicity but he seemed to be enjoying himself, so different strokes and all that.
What is striking, though, is that when discussing this particular team and what it means to us – a nation divided by Brexit – Britishness and Englishness are too often conflated or used interchangeably. Which is annoying.
Gareth Southgate, he of the kindly waistcoat, speaks of Englishness. His young team with 11 players of colour in his squad is multiracial. “We are a team that represents modern England. In England, we’ve spent a bit of time being a bit lost as to what our modern identity is … Of course, first and foremost I will be judged on football results. But we have a chance to affect other things that are even bigger.”
I love the understatement and that he is showing rather than telling us what a modern English identity might be. Englishness is still an awkward concept for the left and I have long argued that if we fail to address this, we cede this territory entirely to the right; that if England cannot speak for itself, it will find a way. Brexit can be read as that, of course, although it was clear during the Scottish independence referendum that the United Kingdom is really a fantasy of English domination. The ignorance and lack of attention to Ireland displayed since the vote simply affirms this.
It has been all too easy, then, for any display of patriotism to be caricatured by both left and right. The left remains embarrassed, going on about internationalism and localism everywhere except England. The right keeps on with its flag banning stories of political correctness gone mad.
Remain continues to exhibit its lack of emotional intelligence with its discomfort about Englishness, although it was Anthony Barnett’s formulation, “England without London”, that voted to leave. For the moment, something is happening that is bigger than football: a vision of a relaxed and modern Englishness that shows that it is not about ethnicity, but is multiracial, and we can play as a team.
Perhaps my hope is triumphing over experience but culture always signals change long before politics does. We may not win the World Cup and I may never wave that flag – but strangely I find that football has brought something home already. That is worth celebrating.
• Suzanne Moore is a Guardian columnist
