Does Sir Keir Starmer love his country or not? It’s been hard to tell this year. His infamous ‘island of strangers’ speech in May seemed to suggest that he did, only for him to recant the following month after a backlash from the left in his party, saying that he regretted using those words. But now Sir Keir wants us to believe once more that he really is a flag-waving patriot. Literally.
Can you imagine a burgher of an affluent part of North London draping the St George Flag from the window of their house?
Later this week the Prime Minister will announce an outline to ‘reclaim the flag’ from ‘far right’ protesters in a speech to tackle the rise of ‘divisive populism’. According to the Daily Telegraph, on Friday he is expected to argue that the St George’s flag and Union flag are for ‘all of us’ and should be symbols of ‘unity’.
The call to ‘reclaim the flag’ is clearly designed as a counter-cry to the ‘Operation Raise the Colours’ movement that swept the country this summer and still shows no signs of abating. But there the comparison ends. While that grassroots campaign emerged from heartfelt feelings of passion, patriotism and concern for one’s country, Starmer’s new initiative has all the hallmarks of a sterile diktat born out of cynicism and rational necessity.
At their annual conference this year the Liberal Democrats similarly sought to re-invent themselves as a patriotic party, with those in attendance seen waving miniature Union flags. The result has been likewise unconvincing. There are few things more cringeworthy and implausible than a group of prim middle-class liberals, who support a party that has consistently sought to cede Britain’s sovereignty to the European Union, suddenly professing their love for their country. Such an insincere volte face is almost entirely a response to the surge in support for Reform UK.
Starmer’s ostensible rekindled passion for his country, which first showed its first tentative signs in that ‘island of strangers’ delivery, is likewise born mostly out of hollow calculation. It’s not merely a response to the rise of Reform, but it comes in the wake of the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ demonstration earlier this month, a rally many attended despite the presence of Tommy Robinson, and many of whom had never felt politically motivated before. They just cared about their country and its future. That turnout was true, sincere passion in action.
Starmer will have a hard time convincing a conservative-leaning and patriotically-inclined electorate that this latest move comes from the heart, or that it genuinely seeks to unite this country. A Downing Street source discloses that Sir Keir will say there is now a choice between ‘toxic division and national renewal’. But it’s not so much the people who love their country who have been the source of ‘toxic division’ in recent months, as it has been the far left themselves. They’re the ones who at every opportunity have been demonising concerned citizens as ‘fascists’ and of ‘the far right’.
This smearing also extends to the centre-left, including Starmer himself, who in January accused those of drawing attention to the grooming gangs scandal of jumping on a ‘far-right bandwagon’. This constant and relentless compulsion to slander ordinary British people has done far more to foster resentment, anger and division in this country than any insignificant and actual ‘far right’ contingent has managed to do.
If Starmer will have a hard time convincing the public he is now enamoured of these national flags, he will have a harder time still convincing his party that waving these symbols is desirable or appropriate in any circumstance. For instance, this morning we also read a report of a Labour council leader in Hertfordshire having referred to St George flag campaigners as ‘extremists’ and ‘nonces’.
This may be an extreme case, but it represents a longstanding truth that has become more evident as Labour has shifted over the years from being a party of the working class to that of middle-class liberals: the Labour party finds patriotism abhorrent at worst and distasteful at best. Can you imagine a burgher of an affluent part of North London draping the St George Flag from the window of their house? Imagine what the neighbours might say!
A prissy aversion to these flags has been demonstrated throughout this year with a succession of stories relating how councils have removed them, or neighbours have complained about them, on the grounds that they make residents feel ‘uncomfortable’ or ‘uneasy’. The liberal left today feels far more at ease flying the Palestine flag, that symbol of rootless internationalism and aspirational victimhood.
The eternal electoral problem with Steir is that no-one believes he has any feelings or even convictions. And the ultimate problem for Sir Keir, when it comes to internal politics, is that people in the Labour party don’t like these flags and they don’t like the unsophisticated patriotic working-class types who fly them.
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