UNPAYWALLED: What ‘Operation Raise the Colours’ is really about
The hoisting of every national flag by an ordinary citizen represents a small act of resistance
My piece earlier this week on ‘Operation Raise the Colours’ has stimulated some public debate. As a result, I am unlocking it. The piece can be read below by all subscribers.
The weekend before last, I drove along the A12 through Essex – a route I know well. In the hour or so that I was on the road, I spotted several St George flags hanging from overbridges. I’d never previously witnessed such a spectacle.
And then, driving through a village near my home a few days later, I saw a flag affixed to a post outside the church. It wasn’t there the week before.
Something seems to be happening out there. ‘Operation Raise the Colours’ has caught the wind. I don’t think any of us knows for sure where it’s heading, but it doesn’t take an expert to understand where it came from.
Ordinary Britons know that our immigration and asylum system is utterly broken and are exasperated at the failure of successive governments to fix it. They see that globalisation and open borders have forced rapid – perhaps irreversible – transformation on their communities, and it makes them uneasy.
But it is much more than that.
They have also had enough of ‘asymmetric multiculturalism’ - the unofficial doctrine of the liberal-progressive elite which decrees that minority nationalities and cultures must always be enthusiastically celebrated while the majority nationality and culture must be downplayed. This is never said explicitly, of course. But public policy over recent decades has ensured that this has been the effect.
Throw in nearly 20 years of economic stagnation, falling living standards, diminishing job security, a chronic housing shortage and failing public services, and you have the perfect storm.
Sooner or later, those who felt they had lost most from these seismic economic and cultural shifts were going to react. The flag crusade is just a part of that reaction. We also witnessed the blowback via the ballot box with the Brexit vote, and then on the streets after the Southport massacre. And we see it, too, in the major political realignment that is taking place, with Reform UK’s surge in the opinion polls and its hoovering up of support from significant chunks of the working classes, including voters in traditional Labour strongholds.
The elite class and its outriders among the commentariat hold their head in their hands, believing that it all heralds a return to the dark days of the 1930s, when fascism was knocking at the door and racial supremacists were on the march. Many are quick to demand to know what on Earth is the point of displaying a national flag in public? How will such an act help to raise GDP or wages, or improve the NHS, or make the trains run on time?
In making such arguments, these people (many of whom, ironically, display the flags of the EU or Pride or Ukraine or Palestine in their social media ‘bios’) betray their own narrow-mindedness. Do they not appreciate that most ordinary citizens are not motivated solely by dry economic or transactional issues, and place a high value on such things as cultural attachment and place and belonging?
The catastrophising of some has bordered on the hysterical. Quite often, it is laced with invective towards the working-class itself. Witness, for example, a post on ‘X’ which, at the time of writing, has attracted almost a million views and nearly 10,000 likes. ‘The English working class has been so brainwashed by the right-wing media for more than four decades,’ opines the commentator (who displays the EU flag in his ‘bio’), ‘that it completely lacks the critical skills to identify propaganda and imagine a better future’.
What a sneering, contemptuous caricature of working-class people – one that paints them as low-IQ dupes with no agency and no ability to form their own opinions on the basis of their personal experiences and powers of reason.
I do wonder how many of those who level such attacks on working-class voters have spent any length of time engaging with them or attempting to understand their lives. If they did, they would find that these voters are often far more intelligent and nuanced in their opinions than they are given credit for.
I recently had a few tradesmen – a couple of painters and decorators and a carpet fitter – working in my home. At various points, I fell to talking with each of them about politics. We didn’t agree on everything, but their opinions were plainly thoughtful and considered. On issues such as Ukraine, immigration and free speech, their arguments challenged establishment orthodoxy – but in a way that was well-informed and subtle rather than obnoxious or crankish.
What came through was that these guys, all of whom had working-class roots, were decent, productive members of society who felt that the political establishment didn’t really care about them or their opinions. All were tempted by the message of Reform UK. None had a good word to say about Labour. As a person rooted in the labour movement, that saddened me immensely.
It is the alienation felt by people like this that has driven ‘Operation Raise the Colours’. The proliferation of flags across the country represents a cri de coeur from the forgotten millions. They are not agitating for the return of Empire. Instead, they are merely saying, ‘What about us?’
Sure, the far-right will leap on the campaign and perhaps even try to hijack it for its own ends. But it would be a gross error to conclude – as many on the left seem to have done – that everyone supportive of it must be imbued with extremist politics.
‘Operation Raise the Colours’ does not signify the advance of fascism. Instead, the hoisting of every national flag by an ordinary citizen represents a small act of resistance.
And that in itself tells us an awful lot about where we are as a country.
A reminder that you can follow me on ‘X’: @PaulEmbery
An edited version of the above piece first appeared behind the paywall on the GB News website.