London
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In the United States, the Stars and Stripes are everywhere: on porches, lawns and pickup trucks. The national flag is part of the scenery, almost invisible in its ubiquity.
In England, flags are rarer. They usually surface only for royal jubilees, military commemorations or major sporting events.
But this summer, things are changing. The United Kingdom and English flags – the Union Flag and the Cross of St. George respectively – have sprung up across parts of the country in recent weeks, draped on street lamps, strung out across streets and even painted onto intersections.
For some, the spectacle is an act of patriotism – a community binding itself to its nation.
For others, it is a provocation – a sense that the flag is being weaponized to make asylum seekers and “illegal immigrants” feel unwelcome.
So, what’s behind the resurgence and what tensions is it stoking in England?
The surge in flags can be traced to a campaign called “Operation Raise the Colours,” which began this summer in the central English city of Birmingham and has since spread across other parts of the country.
At its center is a Facebook group called the “Weoley Warriors,” which describes itself as a “group of proud English men” – 2,000 members strong – intent on showing Birmingham and the country that “all is not lost.”
A GoFundMe launched by the group has raised more than £20,000 ($27,000), with organizers saying all funds will be used only “for flags, poles and cable ties.”
Little is known publicly about its leaders. What is visible is its ambition: a network of supporters working lamppost by lamppost to cloak England in red and white.
The relationship of the English to their flag is deeply ambivalent.
Even the choice of which banner to raise is fraught – the red cross of St. George, a symbol of England, or the Union Flag of the wider United Kingdom, stitched together to represent four nations in one.
Both have complicated legacies and have at various times attempted to be co-opted by far-right groups.
The English flag, in particular, was prominent during the football hooliganism of the 1970s and 1980s, when soccer matches were marred by thuggish violence and racist abuse. And the Union Flag (commonly known as the Union Jack) was marched through Britain’s streets by the fascist National Front party – a group that openly championed white supremacy.
But since then, much has been done to reclaim both flags, and many Britons no longer bristle at the sight of flags in public places.
“The far-right tried to use the British flag 40 years ago, but it stands for all sorts of things,” said Sunder Katwala, director of British Future, a think-tank.
“It stands for Team GB (Britain’s Olympic team). It stands for the NHS. It stands for the armies that fought the World Wars, which were very multi-ethnic and multi-faith,” he told CNN. “If people think that the Union Jack or the England flag can’t represent ethnic minorities, they don’t know anything about… how minorities think about the history of the flag.”
A poll published Thursday by non-profit More in Common found three in five Britons want to see more flags flying in public places.
But there is a distinction, Kutwala said, between flying flags from one’s own property and daubing paint across the town.
“Fly your own flags. Don’t conscript the lampposts to impose them on everybody,” he said.
The surge comes at the end of a politically charged summer, when the issue of immigration has once more climbed in salience.
This week, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, the figurehead of the surging populist right in the UK, pledged to deport hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and withdraw the country from international human rights treaties.
His hardline rhetoric came after a spate of protests outside hotels that are used to house asylum seekers while their claims are processed.
In Epping, a small town on London’s edge, the local council won a landmark High Court ruling this summer that will block the owners of the Bell Hotel from housing asylum seekers. On Friday, the government won its appeal against the court ruling.
But other councils are weighing taking similar legal action, which could leave the government having to find new locations to house the 32,000 people currently residing in hotels.
In recent weeks, protesters had gathered outside the hotel after an asylum seeker from Ethiopia was charged with sexually assaulting a schoolgirl in the local high street. He denies the allegations and is awaiting trial.
In the town of Nuneaton in the Midlands, demonstrators marched beneath St. George’s Cross flags, chanting “Stop the boats” and “We want our country back,” after two men who are reportedly Afghan asylum seekers were charged with the alleged abduction and rape of a 12-year-old girl. They deny the charges.
For Michael Kenny, professor of politics at the University of Cambridge, the flags expose that “national identity in the English context has become a political battleground.”
“There is still a sense among many people that Englishness and its iconography are not welcomed or approved by British institutions and local authorities,” he told CNN. “That sense of disapproval, and the feeling that by flying the flag you are defying the norms of the governing system, is what makes it attractive to people wishing to signal feelings of disenchantment and frustration on issues like immigration.”
For authorities – police, councils and central government – the issue has become a tough balancing act. Hanging a flag is, plainly, not illegal, but in parts of England, the red cross has been painted directly onto public property – across roundabouts and even stretched over pedestrian crossings, something that police warn could amount to criminal damage.
Several local councils have removed flags, citing safety concerns.
In London’s Tower Hamlets, home to one of the most diverse populations in the country, officials said residents were free to display flags on their own property, but anything fixed to council-owned infrastructure would be taken down.
“We are aware that some individuals putting up flags are not from our borough and that there have been wider attempts by some coming from outside our borough to sow division,” it said in a statement, without providing further details.
The flag movement has put the government in an awkward bind.
A spokesperson for UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer told reporters on Tuesday that he recognizes people’s frustrations regarding illegal migration.
Asked about the movement, the spokesperson said Starmer views flags as symbols of Britain’s heritage but acknowledges that some want to use it as a means of causing conflict.
That balancing act reflects the sensitivity of the moment: embrace the flags too warmly and risk being seen to legitimize far-right activism; dismiss them outright and risk looking hostile to patriotism itself.
Other politicians have chosen a harder line.
Robert Jenrick, a former Conservative leadership challenger and ex-immigration minister under the last government, has castigated local councils that remove flags. The right-wing lawmaker branded them “Britain-hating councils” on X last week, adding: “We must be one country, under the Union Flag.”
In London’s Isle of Dogs, the debate plays out at street level. A pedestrian crossing there has been painted to resemble the English flag.
“It’s our flag, we should be able to feel proud to fly it,” Livvy McCarthy, a 32-year-old bartender, told Reuters as she passed by.
Others voiced unease. Stanley Oronsaye, a 52-year-old hospitality worker from Nigeria who lives in the neighbourhood, said he worries “if it escalates it can turn into something else.”
“It’s worrisome when… nationalism is allowed to take a different tone.”
