Flags are suddenly everywhere. The Union Jack and St. George’s Cross have appeared on lamp posts across the country, having popped up practically overnight, deployed by an unofficial army of anonymous citizens.
But why are these emblems, with a combined history of more than a thousand years suddenly lining high streets and being painted on mini roundabouts across the country? And more importantly, why isn’t this a case of sudden patriotism, but instead a dangerous lurch toward violent nationalism?
The inciting event can be traced back to the 2024 Southport stabbings, when Axel Rudakubana committed mass murder of children attending a dance workshop. Despite being a British citizen, born in Cardiff, anti-immigrant misinformation spread the lie that the yet-to-be-identified killer was an immigrant. This acted as catalyst for a wave of hard right racist riots across the country.
Anti-immigration rhetoric, already at fever pitch as a result of a British press obsessed with “small boat” crossings, boiled over onto the streets. Hard right agitators capitalised on this political environment, setting citizen against citizen, splitting the nation to the point where the right was more anti-immigrant than Maga in the US.
What resulted was a host a racist activity: a march on London, organised by fascist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (who prefers to call himself Tommy Robinson after a football hooligan from the 1980s); intimidation “protests” outside hotels known to be used by the government to house people awaiting asylum assessments; and the hoisting of the Union and English flags across the country, a display of support for this movement, but with the convenience of the plausible deniability of “patriotism”.
The fact that all these supposed patriots decided simultaneously that this was the moment to show this selfless support was rarely questioned across the media. Because in reality, this is no more than a sinister and cynical intimidation tactic.
It is intended to make those from traditionally immigrant backgrounds feel uncomfortable within their own communities, regardless of their settlement status or nationality.
And those who raise these flags without permission on public infrastructure: telegraph poles, lamp posts, etc., weaponise the plausible deniability of the act by turning any attempt to question the behaviour into an attack. Don’t you love your country? Aren’t you a patriot?
But displays of hatred, acts of othering and the separation of communities into us and them isn’t patriotism, it’s nationalism. It’s the opposite of patriotism, which is built on shared values, and coming together in the name of a common cause.
If you use the flag as a shield to deflect, and a mask to hide your racism, then this is nothing better than desecration of said flag.
And if we are still unconvinced, if we still believe that the people who put up these flags in public places are doing it with good intentions and because they truly love their country and the symbol, then we can disabuse ourselves with a very simple question: will they be looking after these flags and making sure they don’t fall into a state of disrepair? Do they have sufficient patriotism to prevent them becoming a blight on their local communities?
Let’s be honest, we all know the answer to that.