The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
England and the English are treated with contempt by our Anglophobic elite
When even Labour’s Emily Thornberry has got a problem with England’s controversial new football shirt, it suggests that there may be more to the fury than mere jingoism.
You’ll no doubt recall that the former shadow foreign secretary was forced to resign from the Opposition frontbench in 2014 after appearing to sneer at a house with three England flags hanging outside it. Posting the image on Twitter, as X was known at the time, she opined: “Image from #Rochester”. She was later forced to apologise and stand down following a huge backlash.
What a difference a decade makes. Ms Thornberry appears to have completely changed her tune when it comes to her attitude to England’s national symbol.
Asked by LBC’s Nick Ferrari on Friday what she thought of the newly released England shirt, which features an altered, multicoloured version of the traditional red and white St George’s Cross, she replied: “I think it’s a bit weird, isn’t it? Why can’t we just have an England flag that looks like an England flag? Imagine if they started putting purple on the French tricolore or changed the Welsh flag, and took away the dragon and put a pussycat on instead. I mean, it isn’t on.”
It came after Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer joined in the condemnation of what Nike quite idiotically described as a “playful update” on the nation’s flag. The FA has insisted the changed kit is a nod to the 1966 World Cup winners. Really? I suspect the likes of Sir Bobby Moore and Sir Bobby Charlton will be turning in their graves at the sight of it.
Joining the call for the kit to be withdrawn and the emblem returned to its usual form, Starmer argued the St George’s Cross is “unifying” and something “to be proud of ” while Rishi Sunak said: “Obviously I prefer the original. My general view is that when it comes to our national flags, we shouldn’t mess with them. Because they are a source of pride, identity, who we are, and they’re perfect as they are.”
Both the Prime Minister and the leader of the Opposition agree on this, along with what seems like the vast majority of England football fans – but Nike and the FA think they know better because the £124.99 shirt has “flown off the shelves” since its release on Monday. I hope shoppers now start boycotting it – not just because it’s embarrassingly woke but also due to the fact it’s offensively expensive. One hundred and twenty five quid for an “interpretation of the flag of St George?” Don’t be daft. (Of course this is the same Nike that at first couldn’t even be bothered to produce replica shirts of the Lioness goalkeeper Mary Earps, who was later named BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2023).
But this is about more than mere incompetence. As one sports commentator pointed out: “No other country would allow this to happen.” And that strikes true. The English and their national symbols are treated with contempt by a liberal elite hellbent on mischaracterising any form of pride in England as bigotry.
In some ways it was ever thus. As George Orwell once remarked: “England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality.” But what we’ve witnessed in more recent times is a move away from what I would call apologetic Englishness, a tendency to self-flagellate – to actually being metaphorically flogged by other people seeking to demonise who we are, and what we stand for.
They have revelled in talk of the St George’s Cross being “toxified” by far-Right hooligans – despite the fact that the vast majority of people who fly it are anything but thugs. They pretend that Englishness is indelibly linked to “whiteness”, when in fact England is one of the most successful multiethnic places on earth (far more diverse, by the way, than Scotland and Wales, which I will come to in just a moment).
The focus should never have remained on a tiny minority of bone-headed morons draped in the flag while performing Nazi salutes – when the truth is that the St George’s Cross is far more likely to be waved by millions of ordinary patriots at football matches, royal events, concerts and such like.
It is simply not right that the flags of other parts of the UK are deemed a source of national pride, but the red and white cross representing St George, the patron saint of England, is treated differently.
Even more troublingly, while the English are vilified when they fly the flag – the liberal Left has turned a blind eye to fanatical nationalism elsewhere in the British Isles, where Anglophobia seems to have become an acceptable form of bigotry in some parts.
Leo Varadkar, who this week announced his resignation as Irish Taoiseach, became notorious for his Brit-bashing, in part because of the electoral threat he faced from Sinn Fein. The SNP, which disguises its dislike of the English as “progressive nationalism”, has been accused of stoking Anglophobia since it emerged as the biggest party in the Scottish parliament in 2007, while Wales under Labour has been hostile as well.
Will Vaughan Gething be any better than Mark Drakeford, the former Welsh first minister, who was famously “moved” when reading a letter written by a 15th-century Prince of Wales envisioning a country free from the rule of the “barbarous” English? Don’t hold your dragon breath.
And all this when England subsidises the other UK nations to a massive extent. England’s GDP dwarfs that of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland combined and yet we’re not even allowed our own Parliament.
But back to flags. Can anyone
Leeds University is becoming a hostile environment
for Jewish students Patriotic: the Union Jack and the flag of St George fly at Westminster
seriously imagine the Scots allowing the Saltire to be messed around with, or the Baner Cymru being doctored? Of course not. So why on earth are the English just meant to suck it up and take it?
It speaks to a complete imbalance in how different nationalities are treated in the UK. Pride in being Scottish, Welsh or Irish is treated as entirely legitimate and benign, but being proud to be English – and celebrating England’s emblems and national symbols – is deemed to almost be dangerous.
And this is despite the fact that being English is indeed something to take immense pride in. This is the greatest country on earth, with the most extraordinary history.
We have an unparalleled cultural heritage, a tradition of democratic governance going back centuries, and a legacy of global influence. From literature to music, from film to fashion, we are the envy of much of the world. Such is our international renown that a poll by US News &
World Report last year revealed that Americans rated the UK (of which England is, of course, the most significant part) as the “Best Country in the World.”
We should be celebrating and promoting all we’ve achieved – not allowing it to be degraded by this sort of virtue-signalling nonsense. grossly offensive sticker which read: “Zionism? Nein danke”, while a stall that was being operated by Jewish students was attacked.
It also said that, last month, one of the university’s professors had led a “from the river to the sea” chant, and in a separate incident a Jewish student centre, Hillel House, was defaced with graffiti that read: “IDF off campus” and “Free Palestine”.
According to Guy Dabby-Joory, of the Union of Jewish Students: “Jewish students have been targeted by violent threats, physical assault and verbal abuse by their peers, while grieving the consequences of Hamas’ attack.” Emma Levy, president of the Jewish Society, told me: “Jewish students are exhausted of constantly having to defend their right to exist proudly on campus. We deserve the right, like any other group, to display our identity without risk of abuse.”
Dame Andrea Jenkyns, the Conservative MP for nearby Morley and Outwood, has rightly demanded an urgent meeting with the vicechancellor. This isn’t the Leeds University that I used to know and love.