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.
