England is suddenly flying its flags – but are they symbols of pride or prejudice?

The winds of change are blowing through a country that has traditionally had an ambivalent attitude towards displays of nationalism

Protesters wave Union Jacks and St George's flags during the 'Unite The Kingdom' rally in London. Getty Images

In Cheshire villages, the main streets are bedecked with Union flags. They are outside shops, coffee bars, houses. It is a scene that could have come straight from the much grander Mall in the centre of London.

As we drove through them at the weekend, it was hard not to be impressed with the stirring patriotism on display. This is an area that takes the past seriously, that doubtless celebrated VE Day, when some Union Jacks first went up, and has not taken them down since. More have been added and the Cross of St George. The English symbol is in evidence too – on the same roads and painted on roundabouts and bridges.

St George's flags painted on a zebra crossing in York. PA

There is an undercurrent that this may not be entirely about commemorating heroic sacrifice and a great war victory. For this region is also a hotbed of Reform UK. Nigel Farage’s nascent party scored a famous triumph in the recent by-election in nearby Runcorn and there are Reform UK representatives on the local Cheshire West and Chester council.

This phenomenon is being replicated all over England. What began in Weoley Castle in the Midlands, in response to a story about a 12-year-old-girl in neighbouring Rugby being prevented from wearing a Union Jack dress at school, quickly spread.

She was wearing the dress for Bilton School's “culture celebration day”, for which pupils wore cultural dress rather than school uniform. The school has since offered “unreserved apologies” to the girl over the incident.

Her case caught fire online and a group called the “Weoley Warriors” was formed by three men to highlight the problem. The group is now said to have dozens of members. Flags and reproductions of flags appeared overnight across the Midlands and beyond. On their crowdfunded page, Weoley Warriors describes itself as “a group of proud English men with a common goal to show Birmingham and the rest of the country how proud we are of our history, freedoms and achievements, giving hope to local communities that all isn't lost and they are not alone”.

At the same time, a totally separate movement, “Operation Raise the Colours”, encouraged people to put up flags. The two became blurred when, on TikTok, the Weoley Warriors deployed the hashtag “operation raise the colours” alongside some of the photographs of their work.

St George's and Union flags. AFP

This is new and represents a marked change in the national psyche – it is relatively rare for flags to be displayed in the UK at all, apart from on public buildings to mark designated state occasions. It’s just not done.

Partly, the reticence is to do with the nature of the Union Jack itself – it symbolises four nations under one, overarching British umbrella. Certainly three of those four like to view themselves as separate and distinct, with their own traditions, customs and values. In England, the dominant member, identity is regarded as less of an issue. We’re all one but we also like to play football and rugby against one another and the rivalry at times is intense.

Historically of course, the aggression was not confined to the sports field and was altogether more bloody and savage. Generally, however, the only events the Union and St George flags would be displayed at were state occasions or at Wembley or Twickenham. Or adorning extreme right-wing demonstrations and publications.

Therein lies the problem, because the football team in particular attracted a hardcore kind of supporter who was part football follower and part nationalist. Latterly, with the rise of Tommy Robinson, the English Defence League (EDL) and Farage’s Reform UK, the flag-waving has become commonplace.

Is it heartfelt affection for Britain and England, or is it something more sinister, tipping into racism and exclusion? The hard right are on the march, and with them, the two flags.

At Saturday’s Robinson-led, 110,000-strong “unite the kingdom” protest in Whitehall, in London, they were both everywhere. Operation Raise the Colours has reportedly accepted a donation from the far-right organisation Britain First. Operation Raise the Colours denies it is a far-right organisation.

A Union Jack on a residential house in the village of Slaithwaite, northern England. AFP

Late in the day, Prime Minister Keir Starmer is trying to reclaim the national ensigns. The emblem, either of the collective “home nations” or of England, has become potent and toxic. It is not alone – the red poppy for Remembrance has, in some circles, acquired similar connotations.

Arguments about the medium – and they rage constantly – is masking an underlying message, that Britain is increasingly divided and unhappy. To head back to Cheshire, how is it that a quiet, fairly affluent, mostly rural part of the country has become, along with so many others, so enamoured with Reform UK?

Disillusion is the answer. The two main parties have, over the last decades, failed to deliver and into the breach – against Labour in Runcorn, against Labour and the Tories in local government elections – has stepped Farage and his colleagues. Reform UK’s ticket is billed as “common sense”. That is what Farage claims to convey in his forthright, no-nonsense style.

Top of his list of priorities is immigration, an issue hardened by the daily boats crossing the English Channel and the putting up of their occupants awaiting processing in hotels, now renamed “asylum hotels”. Farage has a list of policies, but that central one is also where Robinson and his more extreme followers come in.

The government’s failure to get to grips with illegal immigrants has soared to the head of subjects about which the British people are most concerned, even displacing the time-honoured hegemony of the NHS in the polls. It’s ahead of health, law and order, education, climate change.

Yet the numbers are tiny. Britain is home to 68 million inhabitants, of which those who came illegally are a small proportion. Those who settled legally make up a far higher, but still small, proportion of the total population. (It is pointless offering actual statistics because there is no clear agreement as to what they are, which only adds to the discord).

“Foreigners” form the litmus paper for so much that is wrong with present-day Britain: a healthcare system that is creaking and no longer fit for purpose; overburdened welfare; lack of affordable, decent housing; straining infrastructure; shortage of meaningful employment opportunities and skills training; the rising cost of living; increased taxation. To those can be added, in some areas, prevalent crime and drugs, problems that are again frequently blamed on the overseas “interloper”.

US and British flags line The Mall before US President Donald Trump's state visit. Reuters

What also lies underneath is dissatisfaction with Britain’s position in the world, uncertainty about its role, worries about vulnerability to energy and defence risks, and fears concerning the economic impact of globalisation. For Britain then, read Donald Trump’s America, where immigration and “illegals” are similarly to the fore. It was an issue not much to the fore in this week's visit by the US leader to the UK, but members of the US administration criticise the UK's tolerance for such dissent as antithetical to free speech.

In both countries, too, the right has seized upon “woke” as the exemplar of a society that is skewed and a state machine that wastes public money and tax revenue pursuing an elitist, leftist, liberal college-inspired, diversity-driven agenda – to the exclusion of the ordinary working person.

That is why Elon Musk was a guest of honour via video link at Robinson’s London rally, calling for the “dissolution of parliament” and a “change of government”. He railed as well against the “woke mind virus” and told the crowd that “violence is coming … you either fight back or you die”. It’s why Farage, riding high in the polls, met with an approving Trump in the Oval Office two weeks ago.

Flags on a bridge in Cheshire. AFP

Rural Cheshire might seem peaceful enough, providing a colourful tableau of loyal pageantry and contentment. The truth, as for so much else of Britain, is rather different.