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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
The St. George’s flag is springing up around England. Is it a symbol
of proud patriotism or weaponized nationalism?
By Olivia Kemp, CNN
Updated:
7:01 PM EDT, Fri August 29, 2025
Source: CNN
In the United States, the Stars and Stripes are everywhere: on porches,
lawns and pickup trucks. The national flag is part of the scenery,
almost invisible in its ubiquity.
In England, flags are rarer. They usually surface only for royal
jubilees, military commemorations or major sporting events.
But this summer, things are changing. The United Kingdom and English
flags – the Union Flag and the Cross of St. George respectively –
have sprung up across parts of the country in recent weeks, draped on
street lamps, strung out across streets and even painted onto
intersections.
For some, the spectacle is an act of patriotism – a community binding
itself to its nation.
For others, it is a provocation – a sense that the flag is being
weaponized to make asylum seekers and “illegal immigrants” feel
unwelcome.
So, what’s behind the resurgence and what tensions is it stoking in
England?
When did it start?
The surge in flags can be traced to a campaign called “Operation
Raise the Colours,” which began this summer in the central English
city of Birmingham and has since spread across other parts of the
country.
At its center is a Facebook group called the “Weoley Warriors,”
which describes itself as a “group of proud English men” – 2,000
members strong – intent on showing Birmingham and the country that
“all is not lost.”
A GoFundMe launched by the group has raised more than £20,000
($27,000), with organizers saying all funds will be used only “for
flags, poles and cable ties.”
Little is known publicly about its leaders. What is visible is its
ambition: a network of supporters working lamppost by lamppost to cloak
England in red and white.
Why is the flag controversial?
The relationship of the English to their flag is deeply ambivalent.
Even the choice of which banner to raise is fraught – the red cross
of St. George, a symbol of England, or the Union Flag of the wider
United Kingdom, stitched together to represent four nations in one.
Both have complicated legacies and at various times far-right groups
have attempted to co-opt them.
The English flag, in particular, was prominent during the football
hooliganism of the 1970s and 1980s, when soccer matches were marred by
thuggish violence and racist abuse. And the Union Flag (commonly known
as the Union Jack) was marched through Britain’s streets by the
fascist National Front party – a group that openly championed white
supremacy.
But since then, much has been done to reclaim both flags, and many
Britons no longer bristle at the sight of flags in public places.
“The far-right tried to use the British flag 40 years ago, but it
stands for all sorts of things,” said Sunder Katwala, director of
British Future, a think-tank.
“It stands for Team GB (Britain’s Olympic team). It stands for the
NHS. It stands for the armies that fought the World Wars, which were
very multi-ethnic and multi-faith,” he told CNN. “If people think
that the Union Jack or the England flag can’t represent ethnic
minorities, they don’t know anything about… how minorities think
about the history of the flag.”
A poll published Thursday by non-profit More in Common found three in
five Britons want to see more flags flying in public places.
But there is a distinction, Kutwala said, between flying flags from
one’s own property and daubing paint across the town.
“Fly your own flags. Don’t conscript the lampposts to impose them
on everybody,” he said.
Why now?
The surge comes at the end of a politically charged summer, when the
issue of immigration has once more climbed in salience.
This week, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, the figurehead of the surging
populist right in the UK, and withdraw the country from international
human rights treaties.
His hardline rhetoric came after a spate of protests outside hotels
that are used to house asylum seekers while their claims are processed.
In Epping, a small town on London’s edge, the local council won a
landmark High Court ruling this summer that will block the owners of
the Bell Hotel from . On Friday, the government won its appeal against
the court ruling.
But other councils are weighing taking similar legal action, which
could leave the government having to find new locations to house the
32,000 people currently residing in hotels.
In recent weeks, protesters had gathered outside the hotel after an
asylum seeker from Ethiopia was charged with sexually assaulting a
schoolgirl in the local high street. He denies the allegations and is
awaiting trial.
In the town of Nuneaton in the Midlands, demonstrators marched beneath
St. George’s Cross flags, chanting “Stop the boats” and “We
want our country back,” after two men who are reportedly Afghan
asylum seekers were charged with the alleged abduction and rape of a
12-year-old girl. They deny the charges.
For Michael Kenny, professor of politics at the University of
Cambridge, the flags expose that “national identity in the English
context has become a political battleground.”
“There is still a sense among many people that Englishness and its
iconography are not welcomed or approved by British institutions and
local authorities,” he told CNN. “That sense of disapproval, and
the feeling that by flying the flag you are defying the norms of the
governing system, is what makes it attractive to people wishing to
signal feelings of disenchantment and frustration on issues like
immigration.”
How have authorities responded?
For authorities – police, councils and central government – the
issue has become a tough balancing act. Hanging a flag is, plainly, not
illegal, but in parts of England, the red cross has been painted
directly onto public property – across roundabouts and even stretched
over pedestrian crossings, something that police warn could amount to
criminal damage.
Several local councils have removed flags, citing safety concerns.
In London’s Tower Hamlets, home to one of the most diverse
populations in the country, officials said residents were free to
display flags on their own property, but anything fixed to
council-owned infrastructure would be taken down.
“We are aware that some individuals putting up flags are not from our
borough and that there have been wider attempts by some coming from
outside our borough to sow division,” it said in a statement, without
providing further details.
The flag movement has put the government in an awkward bind.
A spokesperson for UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer told reporters on
Tuesday that he recognizes people’s frustrations regarding illegal
migration.
Asked about the movement, the spokesperson said Starmer views flags as
symbols of Britain’s heritage but acknowledges that some want to use
it as a means of causing conflict.
That balancing act reflects the sensitivity of the moment: embrace the
flags too warmly and risk being seen to legitimize far-right activism;
dismiss them outright and risk looking hostile to patriotism itself.
Other politicians have chosen a harder line.
Robert Jenrick, a former Conservative leadership challenger and
ex-immigration minister under the last government, has castigated local
councils that remove flags. The right-wing lawmaker branded them
“Britain-hating councils” on X last week, adding: “We must be one
country, under the Union Flag.”
In London’s Isle of Dogs, the debate plays out at street level. A
pedestrian crossing there has been painted to resemble the English
flag.
“It’s our flag, we should be able to feel proud to fly it,” Livvy
McCarthy, a 32-year-old bartender, told Reuters as she passed by.
Others voiced unease. Stanley Oronsaye, a 52-year-old hospitality
worker from Nigeria who lives in the neighbourhood, said he worries
“if it escalates it can turn into something else.”
“It’s worrisome when… nationalism is allowed to take a different
tone.”
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