Until this country faces down the far-right, I won’t take any pride in our flags

A confession: I’m the proud owner of a Union Jack flag.

Most people who know me will probably be surprised to learn that. I’m not your stereotypical flag-waving, chest-beating, sing-the-national-anthem-with-tears-in-your-eye type. Yet there I was this summer, with the flag draped around my shoulders, cheering on the Lionesses as they stormed to victory in the Euros.

Sure, alongside the Union Jack my flag also features a photo of King Charles, sausage fingers and all, and the words ‘Live Laugh Love.’ So maybe it’s exactly the type of flag friends might expect me to own after all.

The truth is: I would feel uncomfortable displaying the normal national flag. Because where I grew up, if a person had a Union Jack or a St George’s Cross on display (outside of major sporting events), it was a sign that they were probably a racist.

Now, I’m not saying that is always the case. But at least in my part of Yorkshire, it was a trend well-established enough that it was broadly acknowledged to be true by most people. And so, in all the conversations about flags in recent months, it’s been a little surreal to see politicians lining up to say that it’s definitely, absolutely never racist. In my experience, and the experience of the working-class community in which I was raised, it often did mean that.

We should be honest about that. Those flags have long been co-opted by the far-right, flown by people who not only hold racist views, but are open about and proud of them. There’s a reason logos for the National Front or the British National Party use them. It’s a brand of national ‘pride’ that is exclusive of people of colour, of non-Christian religion, of people that don’t fit a very specific mould of who the far-right will call ‘British’. And so we should not be surprised that graffiti of the St George’s Cross on famous landmarks or ‘Operation Raise the Colours’ (a campaign literally backed by Tommy Robinson) has been met with fear by those who don’t fit that mould.

^{A flag I'm proud to own}

Seeing Keir Starmer say he would “never surrender” the flag – itself a nice turn of phrase, flipping the language often used by the far-right around to something positive – was a welcome admission of what the flag can mean.

But he also importantly set out what it should mean in the multicultural, outward-looking Britain he wants to lead. There is no reason any of our national flags should only be a symbol of the far-right. Whenever I see a saltire in Scotland, for example, my immediate thought isn’t that it is being flown with nefarious intent (though I note there have been some attempts to get Operation Raise the Colours off the ground here too; Scotland is not immune to that brand of damaging nationalism). Attempts to reclaim the meaning of the flag, as the prime minister has sought to do, is a step in the right direction because it accepts, finally, what has very obviously become a problem – just a problem that has often gone unmentioned for fear of disillusioning some mythical idea of who makes up working class Britain.

Not only that, but Starmer went even further by calling out the racism and thuggery and vandalism we’ve seen in the last few months for what it is. In a direct counter to Reform UK’s platforming of Lucy Connolly, a woman jailed for, lest we forget, telling people to “set fire” to hotels in which people were living, Starmer said plainly that that was “not expressing concern – it’s criminal”. It was good to hear. It means something to have the prime minister address it. Words are important and they have power; Starmer has shown he knows this.

But actions are important too. So while he may continue to insist it’s “reasonable” to bring down immigration, that must never be done at the expense of putting some of the most vulnerable groups even more at risk of harm. Creating an immigration system that demands people “earn” the right to stay here only promotes the idea that some people are simply unworthy of living in the UK and that sows division and hostility that feeds into the far-right rhetoric.

Rather than basing a immigration on the premise of hostility, we should start with the presumption of openness. The ‘hostile environment’ has demonstrably not delivered what it set out to deliver. But more than that, it has always been antithetical to what we claim are British values. This is a country built on being welcoming, taking in those in desperate need and also those who choose to make their home here because they value what the UK offers as much as, and sometimes even more than, those of us who are born here.

The issue is not immigration. It never was. The issue is that huge swathes of the country feel failed by the state and the “snake oil merchants”, as Starmer dubbed them, who seek to place the blame on immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers.

Until this country gets a grip on the real problem, faces down the far-right and improves the lives of every community (no matter race, religion or background), then I won’t take any pride in our flags.