I disagree. Because the optics of it will just be used to say: look how many patriots there are who hate foreigners.
I think that is very much your own personal reading, bare in mind it will be in amongst all the other symbols used at a counter protest.
As I said, I get into all the pageantry for football. It is during times of national celebration that it loses its stigma. Any time it appears at times of national stress it cannot help but carry truly negative undertones. We would have to go the full gay doc martens, skinhead and an English flag while dancing with immigrants route.
To be honest I think we have pretty much hit a point where we quite clearly have established we have quite entrenched positions here . You see this as something that is clearly tainted beyond repair and not worth pursuing or not of enough importance to try and focus energy on. But I think its key because whether or not you personally have an affinity, abandoning this stuff to the right/far-right lends them an extremely powerful political and cultural weapon, one that is helping them to win as things stand. On a personal level I would like to instill some national pride back, I don't think this country is a lost cause but we are definitely in a fight for its soul. I love it, I dont want us to lose it for good to the Reform Rabble. *I ****ing detest God Save the King though, give me a song about the country and its people, not about fealty.
I agree with all that. It is a great country, but outside influence and the wealthy are to blame for its destruction. The flag is the least of our problems.
I am fascinated by this argument and admit that ,as someone who loves history , it has intrigued me ever since I read Niall Ferguson's book ' Empire ' about 25 years ago. I say this because I had a Chinese assistant at that time and he was extremely dismissive of Britain's achievements , in particular the legacy of the Opium Wars. Having two different perspectives, it is quite interesting because I felt Fleguson was really reactionary from a Right Wing perspective. It is fascinating because you start to learn as you get older that most of the world hold's the UK in contempt. 'Great' Britain is.a bit of a joke. You just have to read something like the Irish News website opinion pieces which keep cropping up my screen to see a different perception of British politics and just hoe far back they resonate. I have also been personally chastised by people from other countries as diverse as Pakistan,South Africa, China and Argentina in the past who clearly have a very different perception of the English. I do think that people questioning the flag and looking at the decolonisation of our history is positive because people are starting to understand how the UK took advantage of other countries to make their fortune. People are making their own judgements and applying a critical approach to history. The protesters arguing about losing our national identity follow a narrow, obsolete narrative that they are unable to look at objectively. I find it to be a very fertile area for discussion. Ferguson concluded that the true benefit of the British Empire are the proliferation of the English language, constitutional law and the ubiquity of football . There are other aspects if you know your history which are often unpalatable. It is interesting that organisations like the National Trust are taking a 360 view . The publication of the discovery of 2 individuals with African DNA in different Saxon cemeteries is fascinating because of the implications of English identity and especially in thr light of the fact we know that Rpman Britain was multicultural . The notion that the Roman British population were replaced by the 'pure Saxons is now an even richer mystery.
I’m extremely jealous of the French having La Marseillaise Jerusalem? Land of Hope & Glory? Somewhere over the rainbow? I like all of those
Ian, please don't conflate what I'm talking about with the 'protesters arguing about losing our national identity' (at least the comparison is minute, almost microscopic) - a lot of the the "we wont are ****ry back" crowd are essentially saying "there's too many brown people". In reality, many of those with the keenest sense of pride in Britain and having a positive national identity are some of those that hailed originally from Pakistan or India, precisely because they realise the value and importance of having it (their ancestors would have stretched back to the nomadic tribes of Arabia, and will have seen the dangers of a national identity fractured by sectarian interests). Therefore to live in a nation like the UK, that had transcended such divisions would feel special. What I'm talking about is what we see in Ukraine, who without cohesion would have fallen far quicker to the strength of Russia, rather than continuing to fight for their country. I'm talking about the Scandinavian countries, who out of the cities will all have flagpoles in their front gardens with the flags of Sweden, Norway etc proudly flying (without being called racist). The opposite happened in Afghanistan, whose "national" army was a pathetic mess, and disappeared within minutes of the Americans leaving, because allegiances in Afghanistan lie with tribal groups (Pashtun, Uzbek, Tajik etc) rather than any sense of 'country'. As a keen reader of history, you should know that the rise of Britain as an historic power is because the tribal allegiances of pre and post-Roman periods (Brigantes, Iceni, Angles, Saxons etc) were dissolved by the banning of cousin marriage by the Christians, forcing people to marry across tribal lines, thus ultimately dissolving sectarian division and creating a nationwide identity. By the time of the Norman invasion, we had common coinage, land tax and justice systems. The fault behind the gradual degradation of this lies both with the left and right - the left harbours unrealistic ideas about immigration and asylum (nations without borders are not nations), and wrings it's hands about British history (find me a nation that hasn't done morally questionable things in it's time!) On the flip side, the super rich who accrue wealth by shuffling their money offshore to avoid tax are equally culpable. National solidarity is an asset (hey, Loading himself has said how much he enjoys the national fervour and pride during sports tournaments and 'Cool Britannia' - that's the point - it's a good thing). As soon as you write 'ism' behind it though, folk get their knickers in a twist. A healthy sense of nationalism is a positive trait though. Right wing populism is not an expression of national identity, don't get that wrong, it's something that emerges instead from a crisis in national identity. The rise of Trump, Bolsonaro, Orban and all those cats, comes from exploiting public unease about porous borders. If we continue to ignore the flag-shaggers and drill down into what their concerns are, if we shy away from pride in our country, then we absolutely risk seeing here what's happened in the US, and we'll end up with that gate-mouthed horror in Number 10. Wow, I just did a full on Ian length post! Well done for getting this far.
We don't call dinner tea. They call tea dinner. Get it right Breakfast, dinner, tea. Anything else is just wrong. They pronounce Scones and all the vowels wrong too I blame it on the upper class influences of the Normans and Battenburgs.
But if you took the English flag to any of these events flying their flags of "unity" you'ld soon get your head kicked in by the enlightened folks there!
This is ridiculous. There are more flags at every left wing protest march than anywhere else. The left fly flags as much if not more than "right wingers" do. This talk of association with the union flag and "blood" on the flag yet the Hamas' association with the Palestinian flag and the blood there doesn't count? And the "pride" flag a flag of unity? Unless you're a lesbian that refuses to date biological men that self identify, or any other kind of TERF, you're not welcome then. That flag has been "stolen" much more than the red and white flag you don't like. The EU flag is a flag of control to show submission of countries to a supranational technocractic protectionist block that is 100% right wing yet is supported for some reason by the whole of the left that believe in its "nice words of unity." Comes as no surprise that Ian wants to change the flag. The left want to change everything. Probably would like something solely in red while they read from John McDonnell's copy of the little red book he is so proud to wave and hold up.........."Keep the red flag flying high" The left was built on flags and identifiers from union's and their banners right through to Labour's own "theme song". But of course they are the right flags. I have a Portuguese, a Lincolnshire and a St George's flag flying from my top bedroom window
Multicultural support at WC 2006 in Germany. The only time I felt threatened was when having a beer with a black friend outside a bar in Frankfurt whose presence in an England shirt was disapproved of by the 'patriots' from you guess where. The multinational parties on the ICE trains down from the Netherlands were legendary, the train had to make an unscheduled stop to restock the bar. We reluctantly sang the German bombers song as requested/insisted on by the two German girls in the last photo.
The right has moved more to the left over the years to the point of being just to the right of left wing at some points. The right you talk of being united is because all of a sudden there is an "icon" they get behind despite quite likely not agreeing with most of what the fella really wants to do. The reason the left is "fragmented" is because far from all this laughable talk of "unity" above they are all in completely disunited groups that disagree with each other on multiple things and constantly splinter, or "the cause" is changed and those that began move somewhere else. The left is the most disunited group of them all. How can you call anything on the left "united" or welcoming when they keep on fighting with each other, expelling people when they decide the message should be different or try to expand their briefs / qualifiers etc.
Ian is full lefty. You are either or, no nuance, no inbetween. With us or against us. Welcome to the dark side "as viewed by those t'other side"
Imp I am getting really concerned now. Last week I was told that I had no hope and now you are telling me I am from the dark side ! Good job I am not paranoid !
That history bit is a little bit rose tinted. lol. Christian banning of cousin marriage? You do understand that most Europeans have traces of Neanderthal DNA in them? Tribes have been inter weaving since the dawn of time. Human nature sees to that boundary being crossed. Remember this Christian church that "stopped cousins marrying" also "stopped same sex relationships" but they didn't did they! It still went on. Sexual desire in most (I will say ancient although I daresay not a lot has changed) overtakes "the rules" and always has done. I think you'll find that the "tribes" were still at war right through to the Norman Invasion with Offa still warring with tribal kingdoms and consuming them, then the vikings pushing in from the North and East and even at the stage of Alfred it was more like today's left wing of groups vehemently opposed to each other joining together for a common cause....i.e. to fight the vikings and after that was done, Alfred was instantly on the march to takeover Mercia at a position of weakness. Most of "England's" togetherness has been down to submission to the stronger Tribal Kings or Invaders (from Romans through to Normans.) Wessex essentially became England from a gradual takeover of Mercia who had gone from the strongest of the "new kingdoms" to quite weak as their borders were all increasingly attacked by viking invasions which were no longer really invasions as Vikings had taken over and settled most of the North and East by then. The only argument on Christianity playing a role is that Christians of different tribes (basically just Wessex and Mercia by this time) fought against the Pagan invaders! But just look through the history of tribal kings in the dark ages from the Roman's though to the Norman Invasion and you will see massive amounts of kings, dying in battles and other kingdoms taking over those tribal areas. Some kingdoms had a different king every few years! and were switching which territory they belonged to or were subserviant to month by month. But that is the truth. England became England not through Christianity. It was by dominant Kings consuming smaller territories in battle wins and once we were basically down to Mercia and Wessex it was the 2 niggling at each other quite often through passive threats and spotting weaknesses. Alfred married his daughter off to Aethelred to seal an alliance against the Pagan Viking invaders. But that paved the way for his children to "unite" the 2 kingdoms as England however England as we know it now as one kingdom is more down to the Vikings from France coming in, wiping out the English nobles, taking the lands from any that survived and then dealing with any dissent in the most violent of ways! If a village dissented, the village was destroyed to send a message! England (and Great Britain / UK) was the result of a vast amount of wars and oppression......just like everywhere else in the world. It was the result of war not peace or religion! If the vikings had been Christians when they first started their invasion / settlement we would still have gone to war with them. The Normans were devout Christians and even supported by the pope yet we went to war with them! Its the same sort of weak alliance the left has these days where they are all together for X cause despite having multiple opposing views on other things. they come together on some issues and the next day are at each other's throats on another issue. Alliances are not the same thing as unity!
