To think this takes top place as the most tacky 'flag' example?!!

Thank you, a voice of reason.

According to some on MN, English people should be deeply ashamed of our flag because of our role in the slave trade hundreds of years ago and the wealth this created during the Industrial Revolution. This wealth, ofcourse, was created and enjoyed by a small minority of industrialists. The factory workers labouring in appalling conditions certainly didn't benefit; nor the farm labourers working on the land or the small trades people. But it seems we are all to self flagellate as a penance for ever more.

The fact that slavery existed all over the world at that time - and in some countries still does - is apparently irrelevant. As is the fact that England (together with the rest of Britain) waged a lengthy diplomatic and naval campaign to end it. English people were also captured in large numbers along the west coast and enslaved by Muslim Barbary pirates, a part of our history that is conveniently overlooked.

In summary, English people should be made to feel deeply ashamed for something that the ancestors of the vast majority had absolutely no involvement with - (and mine certainly didn't) - and something that occurred centuries ago.

In addition, a minority of far right idiots hijacked the St George's for their own political ends and English people passively allowed them to. Big mistake. So now the flag - according to some - is forever tainted with racist connotations. Long story short, we can just about get away with flying the flag during a rugby or football tournament but at all other times not without an onslaught of criticism, most of it from fellow English people😒

I did consider flooding the place with, pirate flags, Disney flags, county flags, flags of all nations etc as a counter protest but I'm not actually willing to spend my time and money doing this. The big winners in this latest fad must be Temu and the like flogging cheap flags.

A petition to reinstate St Edmund was submitted to Parliament in 2006 but was rejected by the Government

Another campaign was launched in 2013 with the backing of Greene King Brewery,

Sadly I was unaware of each of these at the time

https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Edmund-original-Patron-Saint-of-England/

Totally agree & for clarity, I really did mean just as a counter movement to current shitshow. There are 3 options -

1- tear the flags down - appearing to prove 'their' point & tacitly admitting there's a problem with the flag itself.

2 - ignore it & hope it goes away - cementing the flag as a racist dogwhistle & leaving our non-white English folk & legal immigrants feeling unsafe & unwelcome

3 - short term prettified flag with the aim of drowning out the nonsense while our gov try & work out what to do about dangerous, desperate & deadly boat crossings.

I'd knock on the door and see what the deal is 🤷🏼. Easy for me to say, though, cos I'm white so a knuckle-dragging Yaxleyite isn't going to take issue with me. At least not until I start running my mouth off lol

That said...bad people live in plain houses too. Really bad, awful, dangerous people. If we assume the house in question is occupied by a moron it just means they are that - an ignorant moron.

I cannot answer for how a black or Asian or any non-white Brit or immigrant might feel & it would be offensive of me to assume. I'd hazard a guess at bloody uncomfortable in the current climate

That looks like the coronation in c. 1953. 😄 I like flags in general, though.

Quick check suggests Wessex is a gold wyvern on red. We could perhaps go back to St. Edmund as patron saint? Nicer flag.

I remember that time well. Things seemed to have improved but now ...

But would you buy the house next door?

Very true, @koolkatxx , but I'm afraid the racist far right have a history of this that goes back for over 50 years.

This is from 1973. Mostly Union flags, but there are a few St Georges in the background on the r/h side.

I'm ancient, and I was involved in counter protests back then. For many years, I lived within a mile of a property that had been owned by one of the NFs founders, and was used as a "nationalist bookshop" selling all sorts of fascist propaganda and, guess what, the outside was painted with a massive union flag. (It later turned out to be used as a "safe house" for far-right Italian fascists who were wanted for terrorist offences in Italy.)

There was a racist murder a mile further up the road, where a group of far-right skinheads pulled a young black teen off his moped and stabbed him to death. A little further away, a group of football "fans" violently assaulted an Asian couple and left one of them with life-changing injuries. We avoided going shopping on days when there were home games unless we went very early, because it wasn't safe.

For my generation, what is happening now is reminiscent of those times, and we don't want to go back there.

ETA: sorry the image I pasted seems to have disappeared, and I can't find where I got it from now, but anyone who cares to google images of the National Front in the 1970s will find numerous similar ones.

I think this would be cool as an art piece and people would get on board with it. But it’s effectively creating a new flag rather than changing the meaning of the old one.

No the flag isn’t intrinsically racist it’s just some shapes on a bit of material, but the purpose of a flag is that it’s a representation of something. But I think focusing on claiming our flag back from racists is like cleaning the windows on a burning house. My concern is more around how we’ve got to where we are, where can we go from here and is there a way to navigate this shitstorm that makes England a better, more unified place.

But it HAS been co-opted by the far right? It’s naive (at best) to say otherwise. Sometimes things get ruined by a minority and I think this is one of those occasions. It’s been allowed to go on for too long and runs too deep. We’re not alone, other countries have complicated histories with flags too it just is what it is.

I think it’s mostly still widely accepted in a sporting context. Outside of that, where do you feel it is needed? What does it represent to you?

If I think of something unifying that represents England I’m much more likely to think of the NHS, David Attenborough or cup of tea. I’d rather shed the baggage of the flag and celebrate the things I actually like and value about this country.

Thank you!

I'm not info flags (in the way that a PP explained that her neighbour is - he just likes them!) but if I were going to display one, it would be a Union Jack. I'm British, not English. I'd probably display a selection of others too, as my close friends and immediate neighbours include Italian, Polish, Romanian and Indian families. And I'm in a small village in the south-west! I work in a school where it's not unusual to find ten nationalities/ languages in a single class. I find the aggressive obsession with Englishness/ anto-immigration completely bewildering and nonsensical.

Operation Raise the colours, led by bloody Tommy Robinson & his motley crew! 🙄

What feels like a 1000 threads started over the weekend!

Some Faux-naif what’s with the flag posts along with a lot of racist bigotry just about sums up the Bank Holiday weekend on here!

We're supporting them in Cymru too.

Well I am guessing that it’s been quite terrifying being Jewish and seeing all the Palestinian flags on the huge marches and everywhere else. And the trans flag has definitely been used as part of actions to intimidate sex realist women, because it’s been seen front and centre at marches where there have been placards with ‘decapitate TERFS’ and other incitement.

In a society with freedom of speech you can’t shut down somebody else’s opinion because it is scary to you when they may find your opinion equally scary. The normal way to sort these things out is by negotiation, which entails listening and talking. It’s the government’s job to do that but it doesn’t seem to fancy it.

Well I think it’s lovely that he’s supporting women’s rugby like that. In fact, it’s terrific that so many men have chosen to support it this year. It makes a lovely change from the women’s football there many men had a bitching hissy fit because their own team won 🙄

Yes I agree it’s very neatly done. I can’t abide messy paint jobs.

It's the faux innocence of 'get over it, nothing wrong with the English flag' that pisses me off. As if they were everywhere before certain parties started winding up the gullible with tales of enemy invaders. I live in one of the whitest, most British parts of the country, but the local FB pages would have you believe churches are being knocked down to build mosques, and there's going to be a migrant hotel on every corner.
Guy around the corner always flies a flag: fine. He has a flagpole, flag is correctly orientated, and it's his thing. It's not always even a British or English flag. He just likes flags. School near me has 3 flagpoles and flies the Union flag plus two other, according to what's current. Ukraine, England, sometimes, shock horror, even Pride. England flags during sporting events, generally men's football, being waved out of windows. Grand.
All of these things are within the range of cultural expectations. Because we're not, on the whole, devoted to the flag as a symbol of nationhood and identity. And using it as a symbol that's basically territory-marking isn't about pride. It's about hostility.

Bet there’s a few XL Bully dogs behind that door. Arseholes.

A separate bin, please.

Our local social media was all of a twitter as the council had removed the flag bunting that had been tied along a bridge over a river. This is a roadway that is very narrow and hard to maneuver particularly if there's a lorry or bus - and it's a major commuter route. The flags were flapping into the traffic and yet people were up in arms about the "nasty PC snowflakes" that were obviously supporting the illegal immigrants living in the community. These are not necessarily working class people, just stupid ones.

What's this flag business all about? Apologies if I appear to have been living under a rock... been dealing with family problems, and also don't have a TV. Is it to do with sport, or is it some kind of aggressive, collective xenophobia?

(Someone painted a red + on a local mini-roundabout when the Lionesses won in 2022, but it was swiftly removed.)

Well, I just saw a post on social media showing British folks of all variety raising flags to (apparently) show that all are welcome to the UK. Sounds a brilliant idea to me.
Better than abandoning the flag to those other folks.
I may be inclined to hang one myself 🤔. That costly naturalisation certificate says I'm British after all 🤷🏾‍♀️.

That's no different though to people who hang banners wishing someone a happy birthday with a photo of them. I've seen a few of those on motorway bridges.