A walk through any major city or town this week tells you something’s up.
Drive through Wythenshawe, Manchester, where I live, and you’ll see the lampposts dressed in red and white. The cross of St George is everywhere – street after street, fluttering in the wind.
At first glance, it looks great. Almost like the town is gearing up for another England match or civic pride has finally been restored. Wrong.
The far-right has hijacked our great flag and they’re trying to persuade you they’re patriots.
‘Plastic patriots’
Far-right groups have found themselves mixing with simply proud locals across the country, promising to “cover every street” with flags.
Now, I can’t believe I have to say it, but obviously, I’m pro flying the Union Jack!
This is the flag that flew as Britain stood firm against fascism in 1940, draped in 1966 when Bobby Moore lifted the World Cup at Wembley, and waved across the Mall during royal weddings and jubilees.
It’s the flag that carried the Lionesses through their historic Euros win and is painted across our children’s faces at Eurovision.
It unites us. That is why we need to reclaim it, right now, against the far-right insurgency polluting our streets with pound shop patriotism.
Do you remember last summer, when the Lionesses were waving the flag? People of every colour, class and creed paraded proudly. Nobody saw racism in that. It was about joy, belonging and winning something.
But it’s different this time.
Research by Hope Not Hate shows that much of this sudden wave of flag-waving isn’t a case of ordinary people dusting off bunting.
The main organising force is a group calling itself Operation Raise the Colours.
And behind it? Not your local dad with a ladder, but hardened far-right activists with the support of the mainstream so-called new-Right.
According to the charity, one of its co-founders is Andrew Currien – better known as Andy Saxon – a longtime ally of Stephen Lennon, aka Tommy Robinson.
Currien was once a key member of the English Defence League’s bodyguard team, now runs security for Britain First, and has even served jail time for his part in a racist killing.
And he isn’t the only one, as per reports.
So let’s be clear: much of this new wave isn’t organic patriotism. It’s orchestrated, funded and amplified by people who’ve spent years trying to rebrand division as “pride.”
That matters. Because when the far-right gets to define patriotism, the rest of us are left with two bad choices. Stay silent and let them own it. Or turn away from the flag altogether.
That’s how you end up with ordinary people – decent, fair-minded folk – wincing when they see a St George’s cross. Not because they hate their country. But because they don’t want to be mistaken for Tommy Robinson fans.
A symbol that should unite us has become a dog whistle.
And it doesn’t have to be this way.
Go to a women’s football match and you’ll see a sea of St George’s flags painted on faces and scrawled on homemade banners.
Go to Notting Hill Carnival and you’ll see Union Jacks and Jamaican flags flying side by side.
Visit a Remembrance Day parade and you’ll find the Union flag heavy with meaning – not as a banner of hate, but as a reminder of sacrifice.
The far-right hasn’t “discovered” the flag. They’ve just been louder, more aggressive, more shameless.
They’ve climbed ladders at night to bolt flags to lampposts. Flooded Facebook with triumphant posts. Branded anyone who disagrees as “traitors.”
They’ve created the illusion the flag belongs to them.
But it doesn’t.
It belongs to the pensioner in Kings Heath who says it feels like “an excuse for racism”.
It belongs to white van men in Salford, who simply want to provide for their families and get on in life.
It belongs to the migrant businessman in London, who love this country nearly more than the local football team.
It belongs to every mum whose son has died at war fighting for our values.
The flag means pride. Resilience. Belonging. And that is why it belongs to all of us.
And if it sometimes feels tainted, that’s only because we’ve allowed the wrong people to shout the loudest.
Do we leave the flag to the extremists? Or do we reclaim it?
That doesn’t mean bolting it to every lamppost in Britain.
It means normalising it again.
Without fear that you’re being lumped in with people who want asylum seekers deported and neighbours divided.
Perhaps we should take a look at how the Americans do it.
We don’t need men in masks raising hundreds of flags in Canary Wharf at 1 am. We don’t need Facebook groups with slick lion logos telling us what pride looks like.
We just need to remember what the flag really is: a symbol of us at our best, not our most angry.
The far-right has hijacked our great flag.
But it’s not theirs to keep.
It’s time to reclaim it before it’s too late.