EU flags come down in Brexit-bound UK
KNARESBOROUGH: At a flag-making workshop in northern England, orders for Union Jacks are flying off the production line while the EU’S blue-and-yellow standard is proving less and less popular.
Flying Colours, which makes flags for Britain’s royal palaces, has seen EU flag orders drop by 90 percent since the country voted to leave the bloc in 2016. “We’ve certainly seen a fall,” Andy Ormrod, director of the factory in North Knaresborough in Yorkshire, told AFP. “Times have changed, our attitudes have changed.... The demand isn’t there,” he said.
Britain’s union flag is proving more popular than ever, with orders up roughly 75% since last summer. “People are getting a little bit more passionate, I personally think, in being British,” said Ormrod, who voted for Brexit because he is “sick and tired” of Brussels. “I have a feeling that we are wanting more of our identity within the UK,” the flag-maker added.
Britain has a long and complicated history with flags, according to Graham Bartram, chief vexillologist at the Flag Institute, a research centre in London. Until the last decade, it has been reticent about displaying even its own national flag, he said.