[Abernathy]

It's the last refuge of a scoundrel BECAUSE it's so powerful, and gives a get out of jail free card to the cynic. To dismiss it is like dismissing religion. We can't. The morally awkward things don't vanish because we've 'explained' them. It doesn't work. The 'left' or the 'liberals' need to be far better at handling it than they are, and this is not to take anything away from the wilful ignorance and cynicism of the cunts we face. It's all the more important because of them.

Fundamentally, there's something underneath. The expectation of defeat, the expectation of 'oppression', the expectation of some mytho-heroic conflict with 'Them'. People want to articulate a sense of being downtrodden. It gives symbolic, powerful structure to actual economic and social decline, and gives romance where there is only grimness. The flag is the easiest route to it, and it's playing a game entirely on the right's front lawn.

The issue there is, of course, that it's so embedded with the right that playing the game at all is easily readable as playing the same old Reform playground bundle: why ape them when people can just vote for them instead? For all the fear and wailing about cultural marxism et al, the right have been infinitely cleverer with their cultural work in this space.

The problem then becomes how you wrest the notion of patriotism and pride in your country away from the bastards that are using it politically to mobilise the simpletons that don' t understand it but happily buy into the "flag-shagging" and worse.

In this respect, Starmer has perhaps made some progress in reclaiming the notion by promoting a version of progressive national pride - with union flags draped over every podium or conference platform he speaks from, for which of course, he gets unending flak from the Trots.

Arguably the cross of St George, in particular, is so embedded in the bosom of right-wing dopery that it is beyond redemption or reclamation, but what are you gonna do ?

[Youngian]

Fly a flag for those who've done something extraordinary for the country like the England's women team winning the European cup. But flying a flag to show your neighbours something you're supposed to do (support your country) do you want a medal for that?
The motivation is to isolate then garner suspicion and hatred towards those who aren't flying a flag. They're part of 'the other.'

[Abernathy]

The motivation is to isolate then garner suspicion and hatred towards those who aren't flying a flag. They're part of 'the other.'

Absolutely so. Utterly transparently so. And it’s considerably worse than just mischief. The motivation is to foment racial hatred and xenophobia - precisely the same motivation behind Farage “just asking questions” about the immigration status and ethnic origin of the killer that provoked the rioting in the wake of the Southport atrocities last July - which of course was precisely what Farage intended the consequence to be. The simpletons who shrug their shoulders and say (sometimes disingenuously) “what’s wrong with a bit of national pride ?” are a big part of the problem.

It’s despicable.

[RedSparrows]

The motivation is to isolate then garner suspicion and hatred towards those who aren't flying a flag. They're part of 'the other.'

Absolutely so. Utterly transparently so. And it’s considerably worse than just mischief. The motivation is to foment racial hatred and xenophobia - precisely the same motivation behind Farage “just asking questions” about the immigration status and racial origin of the killer that provoked the rioting in the wake of the Southport atrocities last July - which of course was precisely what Farage intended the consequence to be. The simpletons who shrug their shoulders and say (sometimes disingenuously) “what’s wrong with a bit of national pride ?” are a big part of the problem.

It’s despicable.

Agreed. But in a sense this makes Starmer 'flag everywhere' stuff kinda OK by me, and conversely makes Faragist-apeing, where it happens, all the more dangerous.

The flag being everywhere neuters, to some extent, this cynical selectivity and cynical 'we're so repressed' backstab bollocks. If the cost is some Trots being annoyed at someone else being irrationally attached to an abstracted and fundamentally-only-so-helpful understanding of the world, then they should explode in a puff of irony, if they could sense it.

I'd rather the flag was entirely uncontroversial and rather pedestrian, but I'm not sure how to get there with so much poison being injected into it by the right, and denial of it only strengthens that poison for the everyday citizen who, half the time, I wouldn't trust with a penknife and the other half of the time I'm not convinced wouldn't lose it and forget it ever existed - but thems the cards we've been dealt, short of a massive renovation of the national psyche.

[Rosvanian]

There was a short time a while back when showing the flag didn't necessarily make you a flag shagger. One such flag was on display in son's bedroom window. A large cross of St. George with a memorable slogan writ large across it: "In Sven we Trust".