I've been really confused & uncertain where I stand in all of the various flag discourses, which is very unusual for me (ahem.) There are two things, I think, that stop me from developing a stable opinion about it: one about me & one about the people who opposed & ridicule "flag shagging." 1/
I grew up in a society where the flag & its colours are *everywhere*. Every independence day people hang flags on their windows & put up tiny flag poles on their cars. In school, you have to come dressed in blue & white for every major ceremony, or you're sent home. It's all agnostic of politics. /2
So the idea that there's something cringe, or some kind of political statement, behind the flag is just hard for me to compute. I understand intellectually that British culture is different, but I don't *get it*, not emotionally. 3/
The other thing is that so many of the people who are either upset about or contemptuous of the current outbreak of flag-waving are unbelievably obsessed with flags - just not their own national flag(s). 4/
They come to Labour Conference & pull out a thousand Palestinian flags to defiantly wave at the leadership. They hang Progress flags in the window & lobby councils to fly those flags on official buildings. They drape themselves in EU flags head to toe. They proudly display Ukraine flags on sm. 5/
All flags are symbols of imagined communities. Nation states are social constructs, & so is the EU or the community of trans allies or the pro-Palestine community. None of those are more or less "real" & compelling than the others, although nation states do edge it slightly on real-world effects. 6/
I can understand why people are passionate about belonging to their national community: it structures most of their lives, it's the thing with whose history they identify etc. & I get why more cosmopolitan-leaning people feel uncomfortable about it: states are a locus of war as well as belonging. 7/
Here's what I *don't* get: who are those more cosmopolitan-leaning people - "my" people - so blind to their own side's various flag obsessions? And what do people who mock Starmer for being photographed with the English flag have to offer by way of justification for waving all those other flags? 8/
Long story short, I feel that actually the Liberal left is in a lot more of a muddle about flags than the right is. They (the right) seem to know their minds about flags & what they represent: the nation, the state, & the community that belongs to those two. It's simple & attractive. 9/
But what do "we" believe about which flags are good & which are bad? What is the heuristic that says Ukraine flag good, England flag scary? Or, poppy cringe, watermelon pin virtuous? Only the latter celebrated the death of civilians. What, apart from naked in-group signalling, is our ethic here? /10
I guess what I've done in this thread is clarify my thoughts a bit, in that the reason I'm so ill at ease in this discourse is that at some level I'm aware we, the left-broadly-defined, have feet of clay in this whole business, & are on very shaky ethical ground. /end (probably)
It’s semiotics. Flags are signifiers. In most situations, the St George’s flag is a signifier of a certain conception of Englishness, which excludes immigrants and non-white people. If someone has a St George’s flag hanging up in their window, I’m going to assume they are racist, not woke, etc.
You wouldn't actually always assume that (e.g. about a teenage girl during the Euros wrapped in an England flag), but why has belonging to the national community become coded (for lefties) as negative & violent, & belonging to supra-national ones or even foreign ones like Ukraine as morally good?
I assume a bunch of other things about people who display various other flags. My problem with Keir’s flag shagging is not the use of flags as signifiers. It’s what is signified by this particular flag.
Trouble is, the flag of St George has been claimed as the flag of (white) nationalism and the idea that it represents harmless patriotism is a deliberate part of the nationalist strategy.
The UK, more than most countries, is unusual in that flags have different connotations in different constituent countries. You're going to be interpreted in very different ways flying a union jack let alone the St George's Cross in much of Scotland than you will be in England if you fly the Saltire.
And NI is very different again...
And that's OK, but the things I'm talking about are currently quite powerful forces in England, which is where I also live, so it's little consolation to me that smaller nations with historical grudges feel differently 😅
Don't worry, it's largely only for England. In Scotland & Wales the flags are fine, just not the Union Flag obviously, that's divisive. Oh and Northern Ireland doesn't even have an official one.
I don't know why I ought not worry, given that England is where I live & where I'm an active Labour politician!
I’d like to question the idea that flag pride in Israel could be ‘agnostic of politics’. It might cut across party politics. But I think it is obviously still political in the broader sense.
All flags are political in the broader sense, up to & including football team scarves. The point is that in Israel & the US the national flag is contested between political tribes, but in England it is rejected or mocked by one tribe & fetishised by the other.
Yes. I find the idea that nationalism can be regarded as a good thing by some people and a bad thing by other people perfectly understandable. Perhaps the idea that the USA is not an unalloyed force for good in the world is something that could do with more mainstream consideration in America.
Right, so US, Israel, England - bad, Ukraine, gay people, Palestine - good? That's the heuristic?
I think you are trying to make something black and white that isn’t really.
I'm not, I'm very conflicted about it all, which was my starting point. But it sounded to me like you did have clarity about it, at least you didn't seem to agree with me that it's all confusing & ambiguous, so I was trying to understand what that clarity was.
I just think it’s not a contradiction that people like some flags but not others. Because different flags signify different things. (And, as you say, the same flag can signify different things in different circs. Like many signifiers).
I actually think all banal nationalism is bad. But yes, there’s a difference between signalling your solidarity with an oppressed group, and signalling your solidarity with the oppressing group.
I am uncertain that I have anything to add, but I would ask what is the neutral symbolism of fixating on the English flag within the context of UK events and structures of power? If the English are seen having at all times been in power in the UK, what then is saying the UK flag isn't sufficient?
Yes, that definitely a factor. But when Labour added the Union flag to its leaflets in 2023, there was wailing & gnashing of teeth from the membership & commentariate like you would not believe. You'd think it was the swastika we'd stuck on there. So the anti-flag side still has Qs to answer here.
Always interested in your opinion
Thanks Claire, that's kind.