The Flag Fad Makes Me Ashamed To Be British

It is impossible to visit the country of Türkiye, as I did recently, without being struck by the number of red and white flags fluttering everywhere you look. In visits past, this phenomenon always struck me as rather refreshing, even making me wonder why we Brits don’t tend to do the same.

Indeed, I have often lamented our relative lack of patriotism and how, in comparison with other countries, we seem for some reason to feel less pride in our country, traditions, and flag. Yet after seeing the flags flutter on my latest trip to Türkiye, I found myself reflecting not with pride but shame on my country’s newfound affection for the flags of St George and the Union.

For, as in the days of international football competitions, it seems that in recent months the English flag in particular is being used primarily as a badge of identity - declaring the bearer to be a “true Brit”, and not a foreigner - rather than a symbol of unity or shared pride.

Our flag-flying fad has even reminded me of a quote from 90s film American History X, in which Edward Norton plays a neo-Nazi who after being sent to prison for brutally murdering a black man fears being a minority himself in jail. “l figured l’m just gonna put up a flag and hope a friend sees it,” Norton’s character says of the moment he rips off his shirt to reveal a swastika tattooed on his breast.

Now, I’m not suggesting that every Brit who has bought, hoisted or painted a flag on a roundabout over the past few months is a neo-Nazi, but I am suggesting that the primary motivation behind the trend seems, at least to these eyes, to be more to do with a fear and loathing of foreigners than any shared love of country.

And surely even those flag-flyers who would dispute this must admit that the message sent out over the past few months, whether intentional or not, has been one of us against them; Brits versus foreigners; one group welcome, the other most certainly not.

For many of us Brits, our flag has therefore become increasingly a source of shame rather than pride, weaponised to sow fear and division rather than celebrating shared values, even if the name of the recent ‘Unite the Kingdom’ march led by Tommy Robinson sought to suggest a different motivation.

In a recent feature on the subject on BBC Radio 4, one merchant claimed to have sold more than 50,000 flags in just one month, over 10 times more than his average sales ratio.

“It’s because we want people to be proud to be British… I’m not racist or nothing,” one flag purchaser told his interviewer, before seeming to slightly contradict himself by adding: “There’s too many boats coming in… Too many immigrants coming in. And they’re trying to take over, and the government’s just letting them in. We’ve got to stand up and be proud. We’re Great Britain for a reason. Let’s make a statement.”

Another interviewee suggested that “all the comments and negativity” about the flag-flying had come from “white British people, and not the foreigners who we’re supposed to be aiming at”, as if in making this point, he was likely to persuade those of us white Brits who have turned our noses up at the new trend that his motivations were pure.

Meanwhile, the sole non-white interviewee, a British-Asian woman, said the trend had brought back memories of the “skinheads” and “marches” from her schooldays in the 80s. “I think it’s quite frightening, because I have memories of my parents speaking about it and having this sort of fear and trepidation of being in certain communities and of walking around the streets of our city,” she said. “For a lot of ethnic minorities, it’s about checking in with how you’re feeling when you’re walking through an area that’s saturated with flags, and how it feels quite territorial and actually doesn’t feel patriotic.”

It would seem, then, that it isn’t only white Brits like me who feel that the recent rise of flags and marches should be a cause for shame rather than celebration.

Some, like the former Lib Dem leader Tim Farron, have sought to turn the tide by attempting to “reclaim” the flag, wrapping himself in a Union Jack at his recent party conference speech, while declaring: “We will not have our history, our heritage, and our home stolen by the poison of nationalism.”

In Farron’s view, at least, it should be possible for us to be proud of our country and flag, without seeking to divide. “Be proud of your country, the British flag, and the flags of our four nations,” he said. “They are ours. They belong to all of us. Let’s take them back. Let’s wave them with pride. Let us reclaim our flags for those who would reunite and rebuild, not divide and destroy, because we will not yield our identity, our flag, or our country, to the nationalists.”

Farron spoke of a Britain that “may be broken by the wickedness of hatred, fake news and isolation”, but was “not beyond healing”. I expect that many of us would recognise the truth within his diagnosis of our country, though perhaps not quite so many would feel as optimistic about our prognosis.

Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author’s own.