By Lauren SMITH

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Until a few weeks ago, you were more likely to see a Palestinian, Ukrainian, or LGBT pride flag flying in London than to see any of the UK’s own colours. Now, thanks to a grassroots movement called Operation Raise the Colours, that could be changing. 

Union Jacks and St. George’s flags have been cropping up across the country over the last few weeks, being hung on lampposts by groups of patriots. The movement appears to have begun in Birmingham, organised online, before spreading to Norwich, Bradford, Newcastle, Swindon, and even London.

As you might expect, the flags are being swiftly removed by local councils. Birmingham’s Labour-run city council started pulling them down last week, citing health-and-safety concerns. The flags, fixed to lampposts 25 ft in the air, apparently put the lives of motorists and pedestrians “at risk.” This might have been a believable, if idiotic, excuse had the same council not allowed Palestinian flags to fly across the city—which is almost 30% Muslim—unhindered since October 7th, 2023. This is also the same council that, just last week, lit the city’s library up in green and white to celebrate Pakistan’s independence day. Birmingham City Council officials were even caught admitting in leaked emails earlier this year that they were too scared to take down the Palestinian flags without police assistance.

This week, the flashpoint for the flag wars was the East London borough of Tower Hamlets. The local authority, run by the pro-Gaza Aspire Party, has promised to remove any Union Jacks or St. George’s Crosses from council infrastructure “as soon as possible.” Tower Hamlets and its mayor, Lutfur Rahman, are certainly in more of a hurry to remove flags representing this country than they were to take down the many Palestine flags that lined the streets for months following October 7th. The council only (somewhat begrudgingly, it feels) removed these after Jewish residents complained the flags made them feel unsafe.

To the annoyance of Tower Hamlets, Birmingham, and many other local councils, the British and English flags tend to go back up almost as quickly as they can take them down. They are being hung on lampposts, displayed out the windows of private homes, draped over motorway bridges, and even painted onto roundabouts. Over the last few weeks, a genuinely grassroots movement has sprung up, led by Brits who are tired of being told they should hate their country and their culture.

It’s not difficult to see what led us to this point. Our flags have become demonised and denigrated. The Union Jack has been turned into a symbol of impotent British twee at best and colonialism and empire at worst. St. George’s Cross has suffered a much worse fate, being written off as outright racist. Today, there is only one socially acceptable use for the English flag.

As Keir Starmer’s official spokesman, when asked what he thought about the ongoing flag wars, said, “We put up English flags all around Downing Street every time the English football team, women’s and men’s, are out, trying to win games for us.” Outside of these permitted contexts, UK flags are considered by the great and the good to be a kind of right-wing dog whistle. Black studies professor Kehinde Andrews appeared on national television this week to explain that the St. George’s Cross apparently “represents racism” and is intrinsically linked to colonialism and oppression.

No wonder Brits are fed up with having this nonsense rammed down their throats. For the best part of a decade, British people—like practically all other Western Europeans—have been taught to hate themselves. They have been lectured about their nation’s historic evils and the supposed worthlessness, even nonexistence, of their culture. It is impressed upon us, without any regard for historical accuracy, that practically everything Britain is today was actually built by foreigners.

Celebrating diversity, we are told, doesn’t apply to the many regional and national identities native to the British Isles. Just last month, a young girl was sent home from her school’s Culture Celebration Day because she was wearing a dress with the Union Jack on it. Pupils were encouraged to come dressed in cultural costumes, with the aim of “recognising and celebrating the rich cultural diversity within our school community.” Except, the native British apparently weren’t included in that. The girl wasn’t allowed to give a prepared speech on British values and was told that her outfit was “unacceptable.” Other pupils were also sent away for wearing clothes representing various British cultures, including a boy with a St. George’s flag, a boy with a Welsh flag, and a boy sporting a traditional flat cap. Some cultures, it seemed, were more multicultural than others.

Operation Raise the Colours is a genuinely brilliant initiative to fight back against this pathetic pit of self-loathing the UK has fallen into. For starters, it normalises the sight of the Union Jack and St. George’s Cross—something that, frankly, shouldn’t be unusual to begin with. An American walking down the street in his home country wouldn’t think twice about seeing the Stars and Stripes flying outside homes, on government buildings, or in public spaces. So why is it that a Brit daring to display the flag of his country so often provokes horror and outrage? Why is it easier to hang the flag of another nation, to express allegiance in a foreign war, than it is to show our own?