THE FLAG AND IMMIGRATION.

When Britain was an imperial power, it planted the Union Flag all over the globe.

The people in those lands saw the flag as that of an immigrant enemy come to subdue them. It’s an irony given anxieties over immigration today!

The flag has been weaponised and, not unsurprisingly, those people from Africa and Asia who were colonised by Britain and given full citizenship rights to locate anywhere in the British Empire feel a bit miffed. After all, their country was invaded, they were subjugated and their wealth plundered under the Union Flag – and now it is being used to clobber them again!

When people march with Union Flags objecting to immigration, it’s desperate intimidation. Flags hanging from lampposts define territory and are saying – KEEP OUT! It’s using the flag in the way a farmer might use barbed wire.

Flags should be reserved for state occasions, international sporting events and remembrance services, and on the battlefield.

The flag, like the Head of State, should be a symbol of national unity – not something that is used to attack non-white citizens. This undermines national unity but also prevents us having an honest and objective discussion about immigration and long-term population planning.

To use the flag as a hallmark of patriotism is even worse. The strength of Britain is the subdued and genuine way in which we express our patriotism. We have the confidence not to go on about it. We don’t rub other people’s noses in it which is sensible given our colonial history and so I am always uncomfortable with those that do. What are they really trying to say? It sounds seriously like – sod off!

I find the US national anthem and the hand over the heart salutation that goes with it vomit inducing. It’s a blatant demonstration of US ‘exceptionalism’ that screams ‘We are better than you!’. I understand that the only way that a young immigrant nation like the US can unite its diverse people is to create a ‘supernationalism’. But that’s not patriotism. It’s triumphalism.

Some years ago, on a Greek beach, some young British women refused to pay for their deck chairs. They humiliated the man trying to collect their money. I was furious at them. It wasn’t British. For me, patriotism means the behaviour, particularly abroad, towards those who live there.

Real patriotism is remembering that you are always an ambassador for your country, and you protect its reputation by treating people with respect. That’s why most people react against the vulgarity of Trump. No matter how wealthy he is, he is just ‘common’.

We should remember Samual Johnson’s jibe - ‘Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel’. This not as an attack on love of country, but a criticism of those who use ‘patriotism’ to disguise self-interest or political ambition.

So, when I see Kier Starmer wrapping himself in the flag it smells to me like a man without principle or backbone. It sums up his politics. It’s just not British.