It’s not so much a confession, merely a statement of fact. But, in the current political climate, I feel it necessary to put it out there: I own a flag of St George. Quite a big one, actually.
My wife and I bought it for the 1990 World Cup and stuck it in our front window when such a display had far fewer divisive connotations. You can tell it was a different era because our neighbours, in what was a very white lower-middle-class suburb, had to ask us who we were supporting. The very thought that the same demographic today would not recognise an England flag is inconceivable.
The reasons for the shift in perception are for more astute political analysts to ascertain, but you only need to watch footage of England’s 1966 World Cup Final victory to see the team’s supporters were predominantly waving Union flags.
Yet today, when England plays a major tournament, it’s St George’s Cross that’s wheeled out and, as I said earlier, I’ve got one. So, onto my dilemma. I want to support my team (I was born and bred in Yorkshire, despite the name), but sticking an England flag in my window, after the dogs-pissing-on-lampposts, territory-marking that was Raise the Colours? It’s not straightforward anymore, is it?
Like many readers of this publication, I was greatly disturbed by the egregious (in many cases illegal) glut of St George and Union flags appearing on our streets earlier this year, urged on by Elon Musk’s Mouthpiece-in-Albion, Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon. Unite the Nation, my arse. It was xenophobia, pure and simple. Bigotry masquerading as patriotism. And it’s astounding isn’t it how many of these self-styled patriots have no idea which way up a Union flag is supposed to fly?
But up they went, marking out manors using cheap pieces of nylon possibly made in China. For what it’s worth – I plead guilty to flag-based superciliousness – mine’s a traditional cloth version, not some flimsy piece of tat that wraps itself rain-sodden around the lamppost before ingloriously sinking limp and tattered to the roadside. Yet despite my flag’s superior construction, I still don’t feel confident hanging it in public view.
Nonetheless, I was encouraged by the British Asian family on my street who have stuck two flags of St George onto their car. We’d previously expressed mutual distaste of the lamppost displays, but there they were with plastic England flags flapping atop their Nissan Qashqai.
“We want England to win,” they explained. “We’re English and it’s our team. Look how many minorities are in the squad.” Point taken. It’s an argument I could run with, although concerns still gnawed away. I’m a white male, living in one of London’s Brexitiest boroughs and, while obviously no shaven-headed disciple of the aforementioned Yaxley-Lennon, I am, to put it bluntly, very bald. The optics wouldn’t be as positive as they would be if I looked more like Kobbie Mainoo.
So what to do? American journalist Sydney J. Harris wrote that a patriot is proud of their country for what it does, while a nationalist is proud no matter what it does. Similarly, a sentiment often attributed, somewhat ironically, to Charles de Gaulle, is that a patriot loves their country, while a nationalist hates everybody else’s.
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Maybe so long as I fly my flag as a patriot, I’m absolved from the negative stuff? On the other hand, lexicographer Samuel Johnson wrote that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Damn.
Brexiteers evidently believe they have a monopoly on patriotism, especially if it comes with a surfeit of longbows and Spitfires. They simply can’t understand that many of us opposed Brexit exactly because it would – and did – do immense harm to the nation we care deeply about.
Anyway, after the flag emerged from its drawer, for a few days it skulked in a heap on the bedroom floor. What are you going to do with it, asked my wife. Well, for the moment it hangs on the back of the living room door from where we can see it while England are playing.
But watching fans of other nations happily and benignly waving their flags in stadiums around North America, I feel a stab of jealousy. I want to do that. Why has my flag been hijacked by those wishing to divide us? So, yes, I’m considering putting it back in the window for the duration of the tournament (or at least until England’s inevitable, ignominious quarter-final defeat). I’ll report back if I get invited to the next meeting of Advance UK.
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