NORWICH, England — Outside the vast art deco headquarters of Norwich’s municipal government on a soggy Wednesday evening, anti-immigration protesters gather to make their voices heard.
Many in the 120-strong crowd in the Norfolk city in the east of England, 100 miles from Westminster, are either waving — or are wrapped in — the red-and-white Saint George’s Cross or the Union Jack. Some chant “send them home,” while others have harsh words for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and a government struggling to stop undocumented migrants arriving on U.K. shores in small boats.
“I will never stop raising my flag, and never stop celebrating my culture,” Jake, who declined to give his full name citing concern about potential repercussions, said of his motive for bringing along a Union Jack flag.
He’s not the only Brit who has been raising the flag this summer.
An online campaign — #OperationRaisetheColours — has prompted a guerrilla movement that has seen St. George’s Cross and Union Jack flags hung from hundreds of lampposts in towns and cities across the country. Red crosses have been painted on white mini-roundabouts, and flyovers along some of Britain’s main arterial routes have been adorned.
It’s a striking development in a country where flag-flying is usually reserved for special occasions such as sports tournaments, royal weddings and military anniversaries. And for some, the timing of the initiative in the heat of a politically-charged summer of anti-migrant protests has set off loud alarm bells.
The Hope not Hate advocacy group claims a number of the campaign’s organizers have links to far-right activists. Tommy Robinson, who co-founded the race-baiting and now-defunct English Defence League party, has been posting in support of it all on X — along with the platform’s owner, U.S. tech mogul Elon Musk.
A sizable chunk of the British public (42 percent) see the flag campaign as a political statement against immigrants, polling conducted this week for the More in Common think tank found.
Three in five of those same Brits polled say they want to see more flags on lampposts and roundabouts.
“Whatever the intentions of the people who started this off it’s actually not a campaign that should worry anybody else,” said former Labour Minister John Denham, now a professor in English identity and politics. Flags are not seen as overtly political by the British public, he added.
“If you put a MAGA [Make America Great Again] hat on, you are clearly declaring your support for [U.S. President Donald] Trump. If you fly a St. George’s Cross or a union flag, for somebody like me, that’s my flag and whatever the intentions of the person who put the flag up, I’m entitled to see it in the way that I want.”
“I think we should be quite relaxed about this,” he said.
Taking offense
Back in Norwich, in a similarly sized counter-protest crowd, where two Palestinian flags are being flown, people are not so sanguine.
Pro-refugee advocate Caroline, who also wouldn’t give her full name, said the flags had become “political symbols.”
People in minority groups are “very frightened of that flag,” she said of the St. George’s Cross. “It’s an emotional trigger for some people.”
That’s a view dismissed by Sue Hubbard, a 62-year-old living in a village outside Norwich, who was part of the anti-migrant protest across the road. She questions why people flying the Palestinian flag could object to the flag of St. George. “I don’t know why they are offended with this,” she says.
Nigel Farage is, of course, getting in on the action. His poll-leading Reform UK is not behind the movement, but the right-wing populist is jumping on the bandwagon.
While some local councils have been removing flags amid concerns they could be seen as disrespectful or unsafe, Farage has made great play of promising that his newly-won Reform-led councils will not remove “sensibly”-placed flag paraphernalia.
“Union flags and the Cross of St. George should and will fly across the country,” Farage said in a press statement. “Reform UK will never shy away from celebrating our nation.”
It follows a furor in May when Reform UK — flush with success from local elections — ordered town hall bosses in areas they had won control of to only fly the Union Jack, St. George’s flag and county flags.
Pride flags supporting LGBTQ+ communities and Ukrainian flags, which had been flown across many councils in support of the country after the Russian invasion in 2022, should be removed, Reform said.
Farage’s potential rival on the right, Conservative Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick, also appears to see political merit in backing the campaign. He posted a picture of himself up a ladder hanging a flag, and followed up with an opinion piece in the right-leaning Telegraph newspaper claiming people were “mobilising to restore the country they know and love.”
Filling the vacuum
The movement could be a big test for Starmer, the embattled prime minister and leader of the center-left Labour Party.
Since taking the reins of the party in 2020, Starmer has been at pains to insist he is “proud of being patriotic,” often appearing in front of a Union Jack flag and pointedly marking St. George’s Day.
The British prime minister, who has been on holiday, told journalists through his spokesman on Tuesday that he “supports people who have got pride in our flag and our history and our values,” pointing to the flags which are put up on Downing Street when England plays in international sporting tournaments.
But Sunder Katwala, director of the think tank British Future, is wary. He thinks politicians like Starmer should be going further in their response to the Raise the Colours movement — and make it clear that while “pride in place is good, vandalism is bad.”
Ethnic minority politicians on the left and the right should also be taking on those who claim the flag is for one group, he says.
“They don’t know the history of our country,” he warns of those claiming the flag as their own. “They don’t know the history of our flags, because we know that British identity has always mattered a great deal to ethnic minorities in Britain.”
“Nobody feels threatened by the England flag when 65,000 people come out on the Mall to celebrate the [England women’s soccer team] lionesses bringing the trophy home. So I think sort of normalizing its use, rather than it having this frisson is quite an important thing to do,” Katwala adds.
Luke Tryl of More in Common agrees.
“Many Brits like the idea of more Union Jacks flying around their neighborhood, and only want the council to take them down if they’re causing a safety risk,” he says.
“Guerilla flag installation isn’t a problem for most. But when it comes to acts of vandalism, damage to property or anything that looks like bigotry or racism the public will recoil. For most, it’s lets fly the flag — but do it respectfully.”
The post Fed-up Englanders are hanging flags everywhere — cheered on by the far right appeared first on Politico.
