The wave of white and red crosses that flooded English cities in fresh weeks is more than a spontaneous expression of patriotism. This is the strategical run "Operation rise the Colours" which has sparked a fresh conflict in the UK and has become a lens that brings together the deepest fears and divisions of modern British society.
For the Polish observer, this confusion may be surprising. Looking through the prism of Polish experience, in which the national flag most frequently and almost unambiguously is associated with the fight for independence, the English dispute over the flag of St. George may seem hard to understand. Meanwhile, the English flag and the British flag are characterized by much greater ambiguity, and this ambivalence is the key to knowing the current problem.
As Bridget Byrne puts it, a prof. of sociology from the University of Manchester, the flag itself does not have a permanent meaning; it acquires it according to the context and intentions of those who hang it. This multivoice, which is besides described by an anthropologist Thomas Hylland Eriksen, makes the flag an empty sign that becomes the battlefield of the nation's identity.
From Crusader to Punk: Embrace the symbol
To realize the current dispute, you should go back to the medieval roots of the flag of St. George. Her genesis is inextricably linked to bloody crusades and the crystallization of English national identity in opposition to spiritual “others”: Jews and Muslims. As Gabriella Elgenius emphasizes, the position of the flag of St George was strengthened as it became a popular egalitarian symbol of English statehood and nationality. Today, however, the same symbol for many British people – both cultural minorities and white English people with leftist or liberal views – is frequently associated negatively: if not with crusades, it is primarily the later era of English and British imperial force and colonialism.
This negative attitude and contradictions are easier to understand, remembering that, as Nick Groom notes, British flags have a long tradition of being ambiguous symbols, the content of which is constantly negotiated in the field of culture and politics. After planet War II, the Union Jack flag, like the cross of St. George, ceased to be simply an authoritative symbol of the empire and state. Its meaning has been democratized and at the same time subjected to violent misdemeanors.
The 1960s brought ironic “recovery” of the flag by pop culture, making it the symbol of “Cool Britannia”. A decade later, the flag was seized by the far right. It was in the late 1970s that the xenophobic organization of the British National Front (now devolved) carried out a wave of infamous, aggressive marches, carrying British flags in districts with a large number of immigrant residents, attacking their residents and sowing violence. In response, as an expression of opposition to racist narrative, various anti-establishment punk and anarchist movements subjected the flag to deliberate deconstruction, trivializing and embarrassing it. An iconic example became a torn flag with a safety pin, popularized by the Sex Pistols team. Their version of the flag was a symbol of an anti-systemic protest aimed not at the nation, but at chauvinism, nationalistic hysteria, and oppressive establishment.
In the 1990s, there was an ideological “rehydration” erstwhile on Euro’96 football fans helped – as the Labourers leader Ed Miliband wrote – “regain the flag of St George from the BNP”. That's what, I guess, a small unexpected, football was the driving force of this change. This was besides to be confirmed during the 2002 planet Championships, erstwhile St. George's flags adorned windows, shops and taxis of the British Muslim community in Bradford and various another cities, described in studies by sociologists Paul Bagguley and Yasmin Hussain. Then, as these researchers noted, the flag of St George represented, paradoxically, multiethnic Britain, while the British flag of Union Jack was associated with colonialism and white racism.
Modern conflict for Area and Narration
Politically motivated flag-hanging, as prof. Dominic Bryan writes, is simply a strategical “designation of territory” and a form of control over public space. The context of this phenomenon goes beyond the borders of England. In order to better realize the opposition of St George's flag throughout the United Kingdom, it is worth applying the "four-national approach" to the past of Britishness, which is described by historian John M. MacKenzie. His investigation proves that the British Empire, despite being a union of 4 united nations/states with the same rights on paper, frequently perpetuated and strengthened the distinctness of the English, Scots, Welsh and Irish.
For the Celtic nations, the flag of St George for centuries was a tangible sign of the political and cultural hegemony of London, not a symbol of a common project. Today's detonation of English symbolism is so received in Edinburgh or Cardiff as a reminder of the historical and inactive present in the kingdom of inequality of forces.
It should be noted that the current surge of flags, which intensified in the hot, politically charged summertime of 2025, is not just spontaneous expression. This is an organized action that has a direct link to the wave of protests under exile hotels caused by a sexual assault charge that was set up against a resident of 1 of specified hotels. The run has so far been spread by a little-known group of "Weoley Warriors" from Birmingham, which in social media is referred to as "English men arrogant of their history, freedom and achievements". Phenomena was rapidly utilized by the far right, which is increasingly imposing the speech of modern political debate.
Former Brexit leader Nigel Farage, whose UK improvement organization is presently moving in polls, as well as leading Conservative organization politicians, openly supported the flag hanging. Prominent Conservative Robert Jenrick, frequently more extremist in his anti-immigrant rhetoric than Farage himself, accused the councils removing flags from public infrastructure of “hate to Britain”.
On the another side of the barricades stood local authorities, specified as the council of the London Tower Hamlets district, which declared that it would remove all the flags attached to its infrastructure, arguing: “We know that any of the flag-hangers are not residents of our territory and that any of the people from it are making wider attempts to sow divisions.” This organization consequence represents the realization of Dominic Bryan's theory: "the flag has become a tool of geopolitics for a microscale, where each pole and lantern become a battlefield between supporters of different visions of the nation."
United Kingdom contradictions
At the heart of this conflict was Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who firmly stated that Britain would "not surrender its flag to those who want to usage it as a symbol of violence, fear and division." His words, responding to the march of 150 000 people led by anti-Muslim rhetorical ultra-right activist Tommy Robinson and counter-protests of 5 1000 anti-racist activists, precisely find the rate of the full dispute. Whether the flag becomes an inclusive symbol of the community or a sign of boundaries and resentment depends on the result of the ongoing political struggle.
As Kenan Malik correctly points out, Britishness is “rich wallpaper full of contradictory ideas and visions”, and the current flag wave is an effort to impose 1 simplified vision. The actual foundation of the community lies not in "flag swinging", but in "the ability to place multiple votes under 1 common roof". The events of fresh weeks show how hard this challenge is. The conflict for the flag is part of a wider ideological struggle, whose stake is not only a symbol, but the soul of a nation torn between a complicated past and a multiethnic reality. This is besides a clash with dangerous national fantasies of the extremist right, which effort to erase this communicative and the reality negate.
The final conflict is about whether Britain can defy polarization and find a common basis for its multivoice identity.
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Marcin Polak is simply a sociologist of migration, surviving in the UK for over 20 years. He received his Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Bristol, where he completed his master's degree (MSc) in Ethnicity and Multiculturalism. erstwhile lecturer at this university. His investigation focuses on social inequality, identity and integration, with a peculiar focus on racism and religion. His PhD work How Polish-Catholics in Britain Become ‘Integrated’ White Christians: Race, Religion, and Discursive Integration of Polish Migrants into British Majority analyses the racial and spiritual discourses of Polish migrants. He's passionate about the mediate East, he's a techno DJ in his spare time.
