The Flagging Days of Summer

On the red and white lamp posts (and mini-roundabouts) of England

Rod Liddle once wrote of Crouch End, my little corner of north London, that you’d be more likely to see a Palestinian flag flying from a window there than the St George’s Cross. A couple of days after reading this in the Sunday Times I went for a cycle ride around the area - obviously screaming at drivers like Jeremy Vine as I did so - and did indeed spot two Palestine flags on display, and no England colours. Rod was right, yet again, and this was years ago - obviously there are way more Palestinian flags now.

It’s not the only banner you’ll see in these sorts of neighbourhoods; some people display the Pride colours, although that’s far more likely to be seen on a corporate headquarters than a private home, and I’ve even seen the Catalan flag hanging from a flat in my very Bobo area; though I had no real opinion about the 2019 secession crisis in that part of the world, this alone convinced me that I must be on Madrid’s side.

Then there is the EU flag, which became common from 2016 to around 2019, not just here in N8 but all over the most heavily Remain-voting parts of the country. The 12 gold stars, which had inspired indifference to almost everyone in Britain during the country’s membership of the union, rapidly became hugely symbolic and emotive; it came to represent a certain identity for the country’s Remainer tribe, ironically a specific British identity.

There are also the colours of Ukrainian, which can still be seen on many government buildings and the occasional but increasingly rare private home. In Ukraine itself, the EU flag was also visible during the Euromaidan protest, symbolising an aspiration among some of its people to forge closer ties with the West, and away from Russia.