Cross Purposes: When England’s Flag Becomes A Warning

If you stroll down certain high streets this month, you might think the World Cup final is around the corner. Red crosses stain roundabouts and ripple from windows, but even more appear now than a month ago, when the Lionesses lifted the Euros. Back then, flags marked a rare moment of collective celebration. Today, their sudden concentration outside hotels housing asylum seekers tells a different story. The English flag, once waved in pride, is increasingly being repurposed as a warning: a silent signal of exclusion aimed at the most vulnerable arrivals in Britain.

Just as banners in medieval Europe rallied troops and asserted dominance, flags have long carried an intimidating edge. The red cross of St George is no exception. Adopted by English kings during the Crusades, it became the emblem of England’s patron saint and, by the Tudor period, the recognised national flag. For centuries it remained relatively muted in public life until football culture revived it in the late twentieth century as a symbol of sporting pride. Yet that revival was never free of darker currents. By the 1980s, St George’s Cross became entwined with football hooliganism and was later appropriated by far-right movements such as the British National Party and the English Defence League. Unlike the Union Jack, reframed in recent decades as a banner of multicultural Britishness, the English flag has too often been employed as shorthand for exclusion. Its conspicuous display outside asylum-seeker housing today is less a rupture than the latest chapter in that uneasy history.

An online campaign dubbed Operation Raise the Colours has seen roundabouts, zebra crossings, and lampposts across England marked with the red cross of St George. The surge of flags has coincided with protests outside hotels housing asylum seekers, where crowds brandish banners declaring “Stop the Boats” and chant “Send them back.” In Knowsley, Merseyside, where violent demonstrations erupted outside an asylum seeker hotel in 2023, the sudden appearance of flags on nearby streets has heightened tensions, a pattern repeated in Yorkshire and the Midlands. Human rights group Hope Not Hate has described the campaign as “a deliberate effort to intimidate vulnerable people under the guise of patriotism,” while the Refugee Council called it “a hostile environment made visible.” Such displays do not occur in a vacuum: ministers’ persistent framing of asylum seekers as “illegal immigrants” has normalised hostility, giving implicit permission for national symbols to be redeployed as warnings.

Flags are powerful shorthand for belonging and exclusion. For most English people, the St George’s Cross evokes football, summer festivals, or national pride. For asylum seekers arriving in unfamiliar towns after dangerous journeys, however, clusters of flags outside temporary accommodation communicate a clear and coded message: you do not belong here. Political theorist Benedict Anderson, in Imagined Communities, argues that national symbols help construct collective identity, shaping both inclusion and marginalisation. In this context, the flag is no longer neutral; it carries emotional weight, signalling who is welcome - and who is not. When a symbol intended to foster pride is repeatedly deployed to intimidate, it prompts a difficult question: at what point does patriotism tip into nationalism?

The weaponisation of the St George’s Cross raises urgent questions about English identity. Can a flag long associated with heritage be reclaimed as a symbol of inclusion, or has repeated co-option by far-right groups left it too tarnished? Other countries offer instructive contrasts: in Germany, national symbols are displayed with caution, mindful of historical misuse, while in France and Italy flags are typically tied to civic ceremonies rather than political agitation. The surge of England’s flag in hostile contexts reflects deeper anxieties about national belonging in an age of globalisation and immigration. When a symbol of pride becomes a tool of exclusion, it signals not only fear but uncertainty about what it means to be English today.

Once a marker of shared heritage, the St George’s Cross is increasingly being wielded as a tool of exclusion, signalling to some that they do not belong. From roundabouts to temporary accommodation, flags that once united now divide. If national symbols continue to be deployed against the vulnerable, the question arises: what story does England want to tell about itself? Is it a tale of welcome and identity, or one of fear and exclusion?

Illustration: Will Allen/Europinion