As politics.co.uk reports this morning, because it is St George's Day:
The prime minister has warned that England faces a “never-ending fight for our flag and what it represents” in an address to mark St George's Day.
Speaking at a Downing Street reception, attended by former England footballer Gary Lineker and England Rugby captain Maro Itoje, Keir Starmer expressed his concerns about the far-right claiming ownership of St George's Cross.
Let's ignore the fact that St George was quite emphatically not English, although that is an issue that cannot be avoided, which amuses me.
Instead, let's talk about what the English flag means and why so many are deeply embarrassed by it, and why the far-right so loves it.
First, that flag is used to symbolise exceptionalism. The trait is still evident, all the time.
Then it is about Empire, which is still prevalent in the almost entirely negative impact our remaining English overseas territories and Crown Dependencies have on the world, since many of them are tax havens
It is also all too readily apparent to the people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland who are still colonised with no opportunity for exit being made available precisely because of this continuing belief in the English right to rule them.
After that, there is the unfortunate endorsement of eugenicism implicit in support for the royal family, which this flag represents.
And then there is the fact that being English is a state claimed most often by those who wish to use it to exclude others who live in the UK, usually on the basis of ethnic origin, most of whom would think of themselves as British, but not English.
So what is it that Starmer is talking about?
If he is anticipating a post-colonial England where Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are allowed to determine their own futures, then he has reason to make that clear in his comments, but I very much doubt he is.
If he is talking about a country from which the legacy of empire is removed, that would be good. But it seems the far-right, the Mail, and the Telegraph want the exact opposite of that, and hang on to the flag precisely to promote the continuing, and deeply regrettable, legacies of empire. Since Starmer appears to subscribe to all of that history, as if we should be unambiguously proud of it, I cannot see him changing anything on this issue.
And if he is talking about a new symbol of a country rid of class hierarchy, which is used as the great barrier to entry for so many, which the royal family epitomises, that would also be good. But he is not. This is a man dedicated to social hierarchies and the class system. He loves his knighthood and his own act of parliament.
In other words, Starmer embraces all that is toxic about the English flag.
I will see that flag today, as I often do, flying from Ely Cathedral. I have never related to it. It represents a set of values I cannot abide. That is why it is toxic.
And the only way to solve that is to address the underlying issues. Over to you then, Sir Keir. Don't talk nonsense. Try doing something useful about this issue. Make England less toxic, in other words. Walk the talk. Learn what that means. Address the problem. Be the change you say you want.
But that's not going to happen, is it? And so, that flag will remain toxic. That's what politicians like Keir Starmer want.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
The Butcher’s Apron always seems like a flag of oppression to me.
The St George’s Cross is just an appropriation – like the lions on an English football jersey – it’s all a bit abstract and very not English? I mean, why not have a couple of badgers or something?
It’s all about projecting the acquisition of other people’s stuff. That is what our flags mean to me.
Theft. Appropriation. Weird. Sometimes I think the skull and crossbones would be more appropriate flag given how much of other people’s stuff this wee island has appropriated.
And yet the England I know, the countryside, the music and even the people whom I consider to be fundamentally decent are not represented at all.
Much to agree with
That made me laugh so much! A couple of badgers, or maybe a cup of tea? I can definitely go with the skull and crossbones, that would be awesome!
Something fearsome looking but fun would be two English Bull Terrier’s or Bulldogs.
Hedgehogs anyone? Mind you, most of our mammals are European varieties aren’t they? That might raise hackles.
Scones?
Pots of jam?
Badgers! Why not? Cheered me up, that notion. Perhaps they’d face less persecution if featured on a flag.
I think McSweeney came up with that one.
I can’t see anyone fighting for the flag round my neighbourhood, although child poverty is pretty bad and there’s a lot of very worried disabled people. I’m pretty sure they aren’t worrying about flags.
I’m Scots, so I better not say any more.
It is also Shakespeare’s birthday and, unlike St George and nationalism in general, Shakespeare means a lot to me.
And Turner’s 250th birthday as well
Also my birthday which is why I got the name Rosalind. Just glad it wasn’t Desdemona.
The English flag has an inescapable nationalism and imperialism problem, doesn’t it ?
If the flags of the countries that make up the UK symbolise separate nations, what are most key functions of Scottish, etc, government doing in England ? Inescapably, emphasising the distinctions between the nations also emphasises empire, domination, exploitation and injustice. It is no accident that the English flag has become that of the intolerant chauvinistic right, nor can it be retrieved from there, because it’s built-in to the UK’s basic identity.
“Our” flag? I think the Genoese might want a word about that.
If we really need a patron saint, there are other options. St Edmund. St Edward. St Alban. St Thomas a Becket.
Much to agree with
Don’t like flags don’t like Union Jack don’t like English cross of St. George.
At least we don’t celebrate st Georges day – did anyone know when it was if Starmer hadn’t prompted this?
A regular walk on the Essex coast goes through a collection of farm buildings – well away from the road. There is always an English cross flying atop a tall pole. You sort of assume what its signalling, but who to? But then there is what looks like a small memorial garden with a ghostly white painted bicycle .
Who knows?
Your references to empire and the smaller constituent nations of the UK: wasn’t the union jack the depiction of those woes, not the flag of st.George?
You’ll see red, white AND blue on kerbstones in certain areas of Belfast, not just red & white.
It was – but England dominates
Two are mainly determined by geography and ancestry.
One of those three identities is a choice.
One thing I like about the EU is that has broken down many of the old ideas of nationalism and borders.
I thought the English flag was placed on the chest of English soldiers to help whoever they were attacking shoot them?
Replacement? Green & blue – the green fields and the sea that surrounds the country (add a dash of yellow – the sun – if you must.
As for a patron saint………..Drake – cannonise him and have done with it. Or Wycliffe.
I am going to give a different slant on this.
George wasn’t English, Andrew wasn’t Scottish and Patrick wasn’t Irish. David was Welsh! The Russians use St. George as well. But they have been adopted for hundreds of years.
The flag of Empire was the Union flag. Not the English flag. It was hoisted by Captain Cook in Australia, flown by American colonists in the war in Canada, ( and at Culloden sadly ) and still part of the Australian and New Zealand flags (The New Zealanders came up with -I thought- excellent alternative but they voted to stick with the flag they had always used. ) It became part of the colonial flags of many places. In the post war period, I saw very few English, St. George’s crosses, except on churches. It has only really become common in the last 30-40 years.
Flags are symbols upon which people project their feelings. So they will mean different things to different people.
Many years ago I read ‘Patriots love their country: nationalists hate everyone else’s.’ I think nationalism in its extreme form has done a lot of damage.
I was born in Jersey and my mother and brother born in Hong Kong. We think of ourselves as British first, English -at times-second. And these days -European third. To me those flags I where I come from.
Oh, I know how not to fly the union flag upside down which a few “patriotic’ flag flyers in my village don’t!
I think of myself as European
And then British abnd Irish
But never English
With your surname there has to be green in you somewhere!!
There is.
I have an Irish passport, and have dine for a very long time.
I tend to like Orwell’s version of Englishness, which is inseparable from Britishness. People have come up with all sorts of ideas about what makes them different. Such things are always forgotten because they never felt quite right. And when you find some idea that truly is English and not British, the idea was probably first discovered and written by a Scot.
The last is so true..
But a few might also have been Irish and Welsh.
It is called cultural appopriation.
St Edmund the original, nice flag too, white dragon on a red background = draig gwyn.
Much better choice…
This comes up year after year. It used to be to reclaim the George Cross from the far right, as the flag was a horrible embarrassment, but now the far right has appropriated the Union Jack as well it all seems a bit irrelevant. Instead, Labour’s gone all flag-dizzy, two Union Jack flags now, one on each side, getting bigger and bigger. Inflation or addiction? – a little flag just doesn’t do it any more.
When I grew up in the sixties and seventies, we in England were English within the United Kingdom, with the same for the other countries. The only people to say “the UK” were expatriates and spivvy types in the Home Counties. But there was a concerted effort by Blair etc. in the nineties to push the UK, and now that’s what we are. I don’t know why, but it shows the power of politics and the press. (They lock you up …)
England colonising Scotland? I’m not sure that’s technically true, as the two countries were amalgamated and England had Scottish kings and queens for over a century. (Scottish nationalists might disagree, because the English parliament wasn’t dissolved, but the result is the same.) But Scottish people are a small minority within a larger state, and the decisions made by Westminster will always over-ride their wishes. (Complicated always by the range of wishes, and that Westminster also over-rides the wishes of the English, as with the NHS, water, electricity, railways etc. – pretty much everything.) If I was Scottish I’d want out, to escape the soul-draining shameful Westminster governments, one after another after another. Lucky them to have an escape route.
I hate those flags Labour uses.
I suggest you also take care with your ignorant on Scotland. I found them offensive.
Sorry to ask, do you mean my ignorance about Scotland? There’s a typo so I can’t be clear.
About colony.
And did you find it offensive? If so, that isn’t, of course my intention. The point would be “the result is the same”.
The language was insensitive.
@ AndrewR,
You managed to pack a truly impressive amount of wrong into your last paragraph.
Scotland is supposed to be a partner in a union, but can’t end that union without the permission of the other party: therefore a de facto, if not de jure, colony. The union wasn’t exactly voluntary, there was bribery and coercion, also threats involved.
James VI did have a Scottish father, his mother did have a little Scottish ancestry, but thereafter the Scottish input into the royal lines was negligible. That includes Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, who was as Scottish as a pearly queen.
The Scottish Parliament was technically prorogued in 1707 (to avoid riots, but they happened subsequently anyway), the English Parliament was, however, dissolved.
See earlier answers re “a small minority within a larger state” and “escape route”.
In addition: there’s also a widely held myth that Scotland was bankrupt at the point of union: it wasn’t; it had zero national debt. The aristocracy individually and collectively who controlled parliament were skint though; having had their fingers badly burned by the Darien Scheme, which was a wholly private enterprise with no state involvement. This meant the Scottish parliamentarian were very open to being bribed for their votes.
Agreed
“Scotland is supposed to be a partner in a union, but can’t end that union without the permission of the other party:”
It is, of course, an odd ‘partnership’ when only one party – Scotland – must get permission from England (according to England) to leave it. The reverse would not be true, England would leave without asking Scotland’s permission to end the so-called ‘partnership’.
Also true, Scotland, the country, was not bankrupt, a few dozen individuals were and there was no universal suffrage/franchise so ordinary people had no say, whatever, about what happened to their country. There were riots but there was little the Scottish people could do to stop the Treaty.
England got Scotland through bribery of a small number of people and a great number of threats.
Scotland is a colony – no doubt about that. There’s a lot of proof of that and no proof of a ‘voluntary partnership’ – quite the opposite.
“Lord grant that Marshal Wade
May by thy mighty aid
Victory bring.
May he sedition hush,
And like a torrent rush,
Rebellious Scots to crush.
God save the King!”
We are blessed indeed to be in such a ‘partnership’.
This year the feast of Saint George the (current) Patron of England is not held today, because it cannot be held during Palm Sunday and Holy Week, but is postponed to the Monday following the Second Sunday of Easter, i.e. Monday the 28th of April. But, today St George the Marytr may be celebrated, provided the celebration is for his martyrdom (under Diocletian) but not for his advocacy for the English. The rule has in some years been ignored – the reasons for this abberation are not know to me. National saints simply advocate for the nation in heaven. Saints do not have to be natives of the places they represent, though some are. St.Patrick wasn’t Irish, St.George wasn’t English, Saint Michael the Archangel isn’t Vaticanian. Further St.George is the patron of various countries and cities and not solely of England. Moscow comes to mind. This is true for many saints. Saint Andrew, Patron Saint of Scotland, serves in the same capacity for Russia. Russia has more than one saint advocating for it as do many nations including my own. I am English and will be celebrating St.George’s Day next Monday.
Reply to AC Bruce. I completely agree about the current status of Scotland. If we are not in a voluntary Union, since we are denied permission to leave, we must be a Colony!
Are you aware that a group of Scots under Salvo and Liberation scot have submitted a petition to the UN with the support if Justice pour Tous in Geneva to have Scotland recognised as a Non Self-Governing Territory? This is the first step to accessing the UN decolonisation protocol which will assist a country seeking to free itself from Colonial control. If you support the idea, go to either website, Salvo or Liberation.scot to sign up. The more who do so, the more likely it is that the UN will agree.
However be aware of British Government interference in making that difficult! Quelle surprise!
The “Three Lions” of England? I think not. I am willing to be contradicted but the English heraldic symbol is, I believe, three leopards couchant. And if you look at a properly drawn representation they have spots!
I think you are correct about the leopards. Does anyone know when and why the change was made?
I thinkbthe reason why may be connected to the idea of the lion bring regarded as King of Beasts. The English claiming supremacy yet again!
Reading all this, and as someone of English (father) Irish/Scottish (mother) heritage whose children now have Welsh blood (from their mother) I fear my sense of identity (British) eroding and destined to be flotsam in the rump of a future land mass. However since I am addicted to your incredibly informative/stimulating articles I shall just have to “tough it out”.
As a Scot, I dislike both flags, the
Butcher’s Apron and that of St George as both have acquired very negative connections to English/British supremacy, entitlement and domination. Once Scotland, along with I hope, the other Celtic nations, leave England to stand on its own feet and not use the assets of the other nations for its own benefit, I wonder which flag it will chose.
I like some of the suggestions given above, but doubt if anything less aggressive would be allowed.
The English flag should be blank, but when you put some special glasses on, you can read the words “Be Pure, Be Vigilant, Behave.”