Municipal councils across England are once again clashing with the country’s own national flags. Increasingly, displays of both the Union Flag (“Union Jack”) and England’s Saint George’s Cross are being treated as problematic.
In Cambridge, the leader of Cambridgeshire County Council, Lucy Nethsingha, said people should be able to display flags in support of the England team, but only “in a safe, inclusive way and with permission.” The senior Liberal Democrat councillor told the BBC:
While some might love to show a flag on their own house or car, it’s not appropriate to attach them to a public lamp-post…
Simply putting a ladder up against a lamp-post is incredibly reckless and risks lives.
Last year’s ‘Raise the Colours’ campaign—which encouraged people to fly national flags in public, partly in response to the widespread display of Palestinian flags on lampposts—may have faded. But England’s strong run at the FIFA World Cup has renewed demand for national flags. At the same time, social media posts mocking English “gammon” and “flagshaggers” (a derogatory term for patriots) have also increased.
Labour-run Sheffield City Council has been more explicit about its approach. After pausing the removal of flags in December—a decision it said was prompted by intimidation from members of the public—the council has confirmed that it will resume taking them down using a:
defined set of criteria… to assess offensive content, including offensive language, hate statements, or insulting or inciting messaging.
The announcement followed a question at a June council meeting from long-time pro-Palestine activist Paul Wimpeney, who asked why:
in some parts of the city, are ostentatious displays of the Union Jack being used by those wishing to create division between people, suggesting to some communities that they are not welcome?
Lamp-posts are council property. Nothing should be attached to them that contradicts the policy and nature of the city.
‘Divisive’ national flags come down—with the lovable Palestinian flag going back up, in keeping with the ‘nature of the city’, presumably.
Meanwhile, nearby Huntingdonshire District Council, which is also controlled by the Liberal Democrats, removed a Progress Pride flag from its headquarters in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire after Reform UK pointed out that it had been installed without the required planning permission. The council said the ‘traditional’ Pride flag benefits from what planning rules call “deemed consent,” but:
the Pride Progress flag is not covered by this provision and therefore requires express consent from the local planning authority.
