This is exactly my own point of view. The Union Flag is particularly ridiculous because it includes the Scottish saltire which belongs to a country they barely wished to remain in the United Kingdom. The St George Cross needs to be binned sooner rather than later.
Because it's literally a flag for Gay Pride? How exactly is that for unity? Is that a flag for everyone or for the gay community? I'm blaming the left for percolating the idea that the flag only belongs to ERW. It doesn’t. Are all flags judged by the politics of the worst people who fly them or is that just reserved for the English/British flags? Because I've got some news for you regarding the Palestinian flag
I don’t agree, actually. It would be nice to reclaim the flag. But ignoring the power it has been given to cause harm is not the answer. Not sure how we wash the blood out of it though…
I don’t know what you are on about. Every lefty I know flies the flag during football tournaments. However, in my own experience, people who fly it all the time tend to fit a certain set of criteria. And gay pride doesn’t exclude you. Unless you are the world’s first and only 100% straight man.
Of course it's not for me. It's for a community who up until recent history wasn't given the easiest time by society. As a straight bloke it's not for me to muscle in on their gig, that's for them and that's absolutely fine. I'm made acutely aware during Pride month that there's certain elements of society that those celebrating Pride want nowhere near them, so let's not pretend it's for unity eh? And what's the set of criteria for those that fly it all the time? White? Working class? Those that call dinner tea? It's always snobbery from the left about English flags.
Well well. It is only not for you if you don’t want it to be. The gay pride flag is literally all the colours of the rainbow and designed to represent everyone. It is a flag of solidarity and union and if you feel rejected by it then I think you need to get out more. Go to The Edge one night. One of the few decent clubs left in town. I didn’t say anything about class, mate. I grew up on the estate and even us whiteys knew to stay away from the thugs with England flags flying from their windows all day. You want to reclaim the flag? Take it to a gay pride event. Swaddle some immigrant children in it. Stop blaming the left cos the right ****ed up your flag.
I've literally been present at a fair few pride events in various towns and cities, so I'm certainly not in need of education, nor am I particularly sheltered regarding various groups. It's only the left who have made the English flag a synonym for ERW behaviour. I'm all for flying it everywhere, pride, Ramadan, International workers day. They should all fly it.
You are confused. The left tend to be against Nationalism and see no point flying a flag for a nation that only represents us by happenstance. It is not us who has made the Union Jack toxic. You fix it if you can. I will celebrate our flag for football tournaments and then I will ignore the thing and all its ridiculous connotations.
You're right I am confused (and I'm sure you're not trying to be deliberately patronising.) Because I thought the argument you had against the flag was because it had been high-jacked by racists. Now it's because the left are against nationalism based on where an individual is born. Which is what we knew all along.
Both can be true. The right destroyed the union jack with their horrible racism and don’t know how to fix it. The left don’t care about flying flags unless they are for causes we care about. You care about the flag? Fight racism. Right now the BBC has a story about the immigrant hotel being forced to close in Essex. The attached image is a skinhead with a Union Jack. Blame that guy.
Also, you say you feel excluded by the Pride Flag… yet don’t understand the way the George’s Cross can be threatening to minorities?
I didn't say that I personally feel excluded. This isn’t me whining about not being included, especially as it isn't for me anyway. I argued the Pride flag is for everyone. It simply isn't.
Bit of flag chat on here, I still maintain that the best thing is for progressive groups to actually use the St Georges Flag and Union Jack themselves, they do themselves and all of us a disservice by just abandoning symbols for the far right to pick up. Problem with any new flag (which lets be honest is not going to happen), is that when the right co opt it, the left rather than fight for it will just abandon it again.
Genuinely think you both have this wrong. The left simply do not care about National symbols. It is the right that both wants the flag and wants it to be a pure symbol, yet the right itself destroys it. This isn’t the left’s fight. The right can sort their own **** out.
At that point the right lay claim to our entire national identity, it is the lefts fight because it affects all of us whether they like it or not. If they don't want the fight then they will lose their stake in our culture and the right will shape the agenda. I want to be able to be a proud Brit and be socially progressive.
You think this isn’t a rightwing nation in the first place? My whole life centre right governments - and even the two Labour governments have had to move more more central until you can barely see the odd flicker of the left. But flags are just symbols. What Britain is all about is not about who waves the most flags. It is about the policies and ideologies we endorse and campaign for. The Right are the flag wavers as you can hide all kinds of sins behind it.
FPTP has delivered much more rightward governance than the public has asked for, the UK electorate has mainly been divided fairly equally between the centre-left and centre-right. Because the left has largely been fragmented and the right has largely been united (until recently) FPTP has delivered more Conservative Governments than Labour ones. I just think it is a big political and social weakness to abandon national symbols because you either think you are above them (generally speaking, not personally), or because they have been 'tainted' (which happens when you let the other side have free reign with them). It gives up ground to the other side and allows them a powerful tool with no push back.
Of course nationalism in a utopian sense is an utterly absurd concept, but we don't live in Utopia. The lack of national pride in this country is a big, big problem. Just like in an individual, if you lose your sense of identity you become untethered and bad **** bubbles along. National identity is as important as individual identity to create a cohesive society. That's one of the greatest challenges of immigration as well. To bring people on board and help them feel a part of a greater whole. If the people within that whole feel untethered to start with, the country is screwed. Hence a large part of why we're at where we are.
And it is the right who has untethered us. The right made the flag toxic. The right preaches hate. In the 80s I knew a guy who used to go beat up gays and into the 90s plenty of people who didn’t want brown fingers in their mouths at the dentist. The fact that these type of people also smeared the flag and those who care about equality would never fly it for those reasons… that’s all on extreme right wingers. Not on the left.
