Keir Starmer Calls For St George’s Flag To Be ‘Reclaimed’ From Southport Rioters

34 comments

1. This seems sensible, I’m not English so it’s not my flag. But if an extreme group of people claimed the saltire, I’d want to reclaim it too.

   Letting extremists be the only ones who use national symbols is a bad idea.

2. There isnt much they could do to reclaim it in a meaningful way unless people start using it for things opposed to what the rioters believed.

3. Making St George’s day a bank holiday (aligning with the policy of the previous leadership) would go down much better with the general public than flag shagging IMO.

4. I mean I agree…but why not make it a bank holiday for whole of England and it will make more of an impact.

5. It’s sad that in part people in the labour party have been to blame for ordinary people being demonised for flying the flag e.g Emily thornberry, so it’s a good change in direction for the PM to try this.

   Obviously other far less savory organisations flying the flag doesn’t help, just pointing out that labour in the past haven’t helped.

6. Don’t forget it was only a few years ago where normal people flying this flag were labelled “potential racists” by the media.

   Its why people don’t fly the flag – its a BNP/far right nationalist flag! /s

7. I’ll take my soapbox please.

   I actually think in general that nationalism needs to be reclaimed from these far right groups. Recently they seem to be the only ones allowed to represent their country, what they do is for the country and what everyone else does is against it. Plus alot of people on the left now even hear any sense of national pride and link it to the far right and want nothing to do with it and it’s absurd. (Generalising to an extent).

   I’m not English, I’m Irish from the North, and I’m from the nationalist side of the community and even I think it’s a shame what’s happened to British culture. First off these EDL types and rioters only ever talk about what’s negative with no intention to ever fix things. Immigrants, immigrants, immigrants, maybe some trans, immigrants. That’s all. Even the brexiteers who designed to reclaim British sovereignty have overseen a rise in immigration over the decade since Brexit.

   There is a huge element rightist nationalism to only ever talk about bad points but also to ensure those talking points are never resolved because when they’re resolved how can they campaign? They’re enemies of the country and they’re anti Britain.

   Again as an Irish man I love English and British history even if we didn’t exactly come through it all rosey haha not a monarchist but I know a good stretch of the monarchy right back until saxon times. English history in and of itself is amazing never mind bringing in NI, Wales and Scotland. Tolkein, Kipling, CS Lewis, the war effort, the land of fucking fantasy!!!! As you can tell I’m a nerd.

   But why does nationalism have to be “everything is fucking shite, the past was good, we won’t talk about the past but scream about foreigners” when it should be the fuckign standard that society works towards. Not being a jobless cunt throwing petrol bombs at travelodges. But a society that recognises its amazing past and those ancestors that came before us and using that to build the nation for absolutely everyone and have a society that functions and looks to resolve issues not perpetuate them for political and social media gain.

   National pride needs to be taken off these unfit, incompetent representatives and given back to everyone.

8. Ask any other nation’s left of centre to wave their national flag and they’ll do in a heartbeat, only here is it accompained by hand-wringing and disdain.

   The entire attitude of “people I don’t like have claimed this so they can have it and call anyone that disagrees a ‘flag shagger'” is pointless and alienating.

9. I don’t seem to recall the flag being used in any large manner by said Southport rioters, but sure.

   I may have missed those images.

10. If you want normal people to reclaim the flag, maybe stop accusing people flying it of racism, though this is reddit so they’ll just say “but those ARE the people flying it” and so the cycle will continue and another piece of history is lost

11. Funny how the left didn’t think Hamas hijacked the Palestine flag though ain’t it, they’ll happily drape themselves in the flag and put it on their social media profiles but I guess all they’ve done is be a terrorist group, it’s much worse to protest the murder of three little girls in your own country with your own flag.

12. I completely agree with this. Allowing the St Georges Cross (and similarly the Union Flag) to be hijacked by bigoted thugs should be a source of great regret.

    It doesn’t belong to them. It belongs to all English people.

13. Problem being traditionally we don’t flag everything up like Americans / other countries do. Its seen as tacky, growing up in the 90’s it was for tourist tat & international football events.

14. The white rose is the best and only flag we should be flying 

15. Starmer couldn’t even be bothered to show the Flag of England outside of No 10 for his big first day photoshoot.

    He wouldn’t know patriotism if it slapped him in the face.

    Good to see him getting destroyed today at PMQ’S 😂

16. It’s a horrible state of current world affairs that hateful people have latched onto the flag of their nations so tightly.

    I can’t speak for everyone, but when I see a social profile with a flag profile pic or flags in the bio, I automatically think “They must be a hateful person” which sucks. Because national pride should be something we all share, our country fucking bangs for the most part.

17. These days, you’ll be thrown in jail, simply for saying you’re English.

18. Being patriotic is like being cool.

    You can’t just declare it. You can’t internally increase or decrease it. It’s subconscious, if you value it, it should be happening within yourself without thinking about it. Hell, even if you don’t, you can become more patriotic over time.

    The second you’re like “I’m proud”, you’re demanding people wave flags, your getting into your union jack 3 piece suit, it just doesn’t hit. It’s fake.

    To improve patriotism, you just need to do interesting things that people will like. Just screaming “England good” doesnt do jackshit.

19. Pretty rich coming from someone that despises the UK and it’s people

20. Unfortunately it is the symbol of hooligans, not because of woke politicians but because it has been adopted by every wanker in England.

21. Keir Starmer Says Something He Thinks People Want to Hear Because He’s Out of Ideas. FTFY.

22. STARMER saying he wants the flag taken by back the rioters aka far right surely proves the point?

    He thinks the flag is “high jacked” by the far right, so anyone flying the flag NOW is far right?

23. The narrative of ‘reclaim’ assumes that the flag of St George has been hijacked, and it’s not the case.

24. Why? It’s a symbol of oppression to many British people. You should be discussing re-designing the flag away from these dated, regressive and Christian-centric symbols of UK’s white supremacist, imperialist past

25. Based Kier, continuing to tap into genuine patriotism is a good idea. It also demerits false patriots like farage.

26. I think queer brits should start wearing st George’s cross at Pride, it’s the only way to bring all communities together. It would be nice to create third spaces for all people under the flag, but this would mean reversing society wide isolationism

27. People just assume you’re some form of white nationalist if you fly the flag outside of periods of major sporting events. It’s not good.

28. It hasn’t been claimed or co-opted by the far right. But rather the entire left completely abandoned any semblance of loyalty to the traditional notions of Britain and patriotism many decades ago.

29. I am jealous when I see people abroad wearing French football shirts proudly and the way Scots place their flags on just about everything.

    We’ve really lost that in England to these knobs. I don’t even wear my football shirt for a sweaty jog — there’s just so many bad connotations with it outside of a football tournament fixture.

    Even shit like placing it on a house for St George’s day, or a company saying something like “Proudly Made In England“ — I can’t help but visualise a proper Barry with his arms crossed like a West Ham supporter.

30. Why did he feel the need to say this exactly?

    It’s as weird as if he decided to denounce Islamic terrorism when giving his ‘Happy Eid’ message, which he would never ever in 1 million years do.

    He’s completely linked the flag with the rioters by deciding to make this statement. I don’t even remember seeing many flags about in the riots?

31. Claim the English flag back from the English. What a weird statement….

32. I’ll go one better: bypass the St George flag entirely and reclaim the White Dragon flag.

    I mean I’m not actually english so I don’t have a say, but Dragons are cooler than crosses, it’s just science.

33. He’s right.

    We can’t allow patriotism to be the sole domain of the right. We can’t give them that win.

    It just makes recruitment for them easier and gives them a tool to delude people with while they strip services.

    There’s plenty of people on the left who want this country better, we just don’t focus on the flag in doing so. So it’d be an easy thing to use as it’s not the core point.

34. Cool idea Kier. Might want to look at a way to stop the racist right wing parties from using it as a logo then.

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