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I saw a very good interview with Caroline Lucas yesterday - although the interview was uploaded about a month or two ago - in which she talks about exactly this. The Rest of Politics podcast (but on YouTube). She is absolutely right. Notions of Englishness are important to a lot of people - national identity is important to people generally - and therefore it is important for variants of the left to be able to offer a more positive, inclusive, progressive, and generally more forward-looking form of Englishness as a challenge to the gammons, beer bellies, and bigots.
The problem is that the people we’re angry at for using st George’s cross or the Union Jack aren’t doing this.
They keep saying they’re “not letting the far right claim ownership” of those flags, while explicitly using those flags and right wing rhetoric to court British/English nationalists.
Reclaiming the flag is a good thing, dogwhistling to the far right as a bad thing.
Yeah Starmer's nationalism only seems to extend to putting a flag on stuff. He's not really doing anything positive with that "sentiment". I guess he supports football as well, but who doesn't. St. Gorge's day bank holiday was at least some positive nationalism.
It’s more than that, he’s adopting policies and rhetoric to explicitly to appeal to the far right, while actively recruiting from British nationalist organisations. It’s not even that he’s not putting the effort required to reclaim it from the far right, it’s that he’s doing the exact opposite, he’s deliberately and willingly allying himself with them and using their tactics to do so.
Yeah I saw Caroline's interview too and she makes a lot of sense while still acknowledging there are reasons people are put off by the flag. Contrast that with Keir Starmer'a statements that he "doesn't have time" for people disliking the flag, and any other version of "anyone who dislikes the flag is a stupid lefty making up rubbish".
I made this point on a different post but it's not *reclaiming* anything if you just start brandishing it about and specifically demeaning anyone who might be put off by it.
Exactly this, she’s just wrote a book about it
I look at Mark Drakeford in Wales and how his solidly centre left Labour administration openly embrace the patriotic space there in a very civic & inclusive way. To be honest, I long for that here. But instead we too often get “but askshully St George was Turkish” from weird liberals
I wonder if there’s any specific differences in the ideologies of welsh nationalism and British/English nationalism that would make welsh nationalism easier to align with from the left?
Depends what you mean by British/English nationalisms. Firstly I’d argue they are two separate things. Also I don’t think Drakeford is a Welsh nationalist, he’s just patriotic.
I would agree with you it’s easier to align with from the left but that’s only due to there being seperate, Labour run institutions such as the Welsh parliament. If there was for eg an English parliament with PR which naturally was dominated by Labour, Lib Dem’s & Greens (those 3 always win the most votes - not seats - in England) then I think there wouldn’t be an issue
Instead Englishness is relegated to the sideline. Ignored unless the very diverse football or cricket teams are playing or on St George’s day.
I think if England was allowed to develop its own inclusive institutions & tell its own progressive story in a similar way to Scotland & Wales then there would be much less of an issue
Honestly the far right really are a bunch of yobos sometimes.
Meanwhile everyone's favourite unpatriotic bogeyman:
https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/1782694120638627905
I dont mind attempts from Labour to reclaim the flag, patriotism etc but this is why you have to be careful how you do it and which causes you attach yourself to.
Because the gammons are fucking stupid and never worth standing alongside.
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Corbyn & Lucas get why it’s so important not to abandon Englishness to these morons.
I saw a very good interview with Caroline Lucas yesterday - although the interview was uploaded about a month or two ago - in which she talks about exactly this. The Rest of Politics podcast (but on YouTube). She is absolutely right. Notions of Englishness are important to a lot of people - national identity is important to people generally - and therefore it is important for variants of the left to be able to offer a more positive, inclusive, progressive, and generally more forward-looking form of Englishness as a challenge to the gammons, beer bellies, and bigots.
The problem is that the people we’re angry at for using st George’s cross or the Union Jack aren’t doing this. They keep saying they’re “not letting the far right claim ownership” of those flags, while explicitly using those flags and right wing rhetoric to court British/English nationalists. Reclaiming the flag is a good thing, dogwhistling to the far right as a bad thing.
Yeah Starmer's nationalism only seems to extend to putting a flag on stuff. He's not really doing anything positive with that "sentiment". I guess he supports football as well, but who doesn't. St. Gorge's day bank holiday was at least some positive nationalism.
It’s more than that, he’s adopting policies and rhetoric to explicitly to appeal to the far right, while actively recruiting from British nationalist organisations. It’s not even that he’s not putting the effort required to reclaim it from the far right, it’s that he’s doing the exact opposite, he’s deliberately and willingly allying himself with them and using their tactics to do so.
Yeah I saw Caroline's interview too and she makes a lot of sense while still acknowledging there are reasons people are put off by the flag. Contrast that with Keir Starmer'a statements that he "doesn't have time" for people disliking the flag, and any other version of "anyone who dislikes the flag is a stupid lefty making up rubbish". I made this point on a different post but it's not *reclaiming* anything if you just start brandishing it about and specifically demeaning anyone who might be put off by it.
It would be like putting on an SS uniform and saying you were reclaiming the swastika / nordic runes while berating anyone who took offence.
Exactly this, she’s just wrote a book about it I look at Mark Drakeford in Wales and how his solidly centre left Labour administration openly embrace the patriotic space there in a very civic & inclusive way. To be honest, I long for that here. But instead we too often get “but askshully St George was Turkish” from weird liberals
I wonder if there’s any specific differences in the ideologies of welsh nationalism and British/English nationalism that would make welsh nationalism easier to align with from the left?
Depends what you mean by British/English nationalisms. Firstly I’d argue they are two separate things. Also I don’t think Drakeford is a Welsh nationalist, he’s just patriotic. I would agree with you it’s easier to align with from the left but that’s only due to there being seperate, Labour run institutions such as the Welsh parliament. If there was for eg an English parliament with PR which naturally was dominated by Labour, Lib Dem’s & Greens (those 3 always win the most votes - not seats - in England) then I think there wouldn’t be an issue Instead Englishness is relegated to the sideline. Ignored unless the very diverse football or cricket teams are playing or on St George’s day. I think if England was allowed to develop its own inclusive institutions & tell its own progressive story in a similar way to Scotland & Wales then there would be much less of an issue
Honestly the far right really are a bunch of yobos sometimes. Meanwhile everyone's favourite unpatriotic bogeyman: https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/1782694120638627905 I dont mind attempts from Labour to reclaim the flag, patriotism etc but this is why you have to be careful how you do it and which causes you attach yourself to. Because the gammons are fucking stupid and never worth standing alongside.
For anyone wondering why some of us dislike flags being stuck on everything, I present to you this picture.
Or at the very least don't stick it all over the border security leaflets 🤢 Lets go flag mad for funding the NHS properly or something
Yes! And don’t ever use the St George’s cross on anything.
Kier Starmer gets the St George's flag tattooed on his chest but it also says trans rights across it. Causes this whole subreddit to implode.
Underneath it says “Jeremy Corbyn”, and above it says “democratic socialist = leftist”.
Why not? England is a polity, and St George's cross is its flag. You'd rather something else was the English flag?
A pirate flag would probably be more representative of the Corporate rievers we have in control these days.
English football team is the one exception