While visiting my partner’s mum in Surrey over the weekend, she told us about the racism she experienced when she first moved in. I had seen a few St George’s flags on our way to her house, and something clicked into place. It was an uneasiness that I have felt since the anti-immigration riots in 2024.
On the drive home, we saw more flags than I had anticipated. Twenty more St George’s flags down one street, and one house covered in bunting of them. On one road leading to the M25, the lamp posts had alternating St George’s and Union flags. With my anxiety already peaking, I was left in shock. What I was seeing was a statement, and it said, “You’re on our land”. It’s the most unwelcome I’ve felt in England for a long time.
Nationalist pride in English flags has always made me feel apprehensive. Not because loving your country is racist – that’s an outrageous claim – but because historically, racism tends to follow soon after a St George’s flag is hoisted. It’s an evolution of how British flags were co-opted in the 1970s by the far-right, fascist National Front party. Then, its members would storm largely migrant towns, such as Southall in Ealing, where I grew up, bearing flags that they would subsequently unfurl over the pubs and businesses that they laid claim to.
While many flags declare a call to freedom and independence, England’s colonialist history means that its flags often read otherwise when they are flown outside homes and pubs. The freedom and independence they would claim they are calling for is at the behest of a vulnerable community: migrants and refugees. And putting up a flag now, when England is not facing any issues with freedom, reveals a more insidious intention. This is about making a statement, not about pride.
I have been scared ever since last summer’s riots. England no longer feels like home to me. I know it’s the outcome they want; to make England white and for migrants to “go back to their country”, whether they were born here or not, but it’s difficult to stand my ground when I am surrounded by this sea of flags with nationalist intent.
And it has really hit home this weekend, where we saw an influx of white nationalism with organised hotel protests and violence. In Essex, a man was arrested on suspicion of using racist language and criminal damage after a video emerged of two men painting red crosses above an Indian restaurant. Racial slurs can be heard in the video while a woman wearing a head scarf walks past with a child. Basildon Council’s leader Gavin Callaghan warned that “racism has no place in Basildon”, but he still welcomed the “patriotic spirit of hanging flags”.
As my partner and I drove to a friend’s house for dinner on Saturday, we entered Epping and fell quiet. Flags outnumbered people on the street, giving the town an air of neurosis. I knew that if we got out of the car – me, a South Asian woman, and my partner presenting as male and Muslim – would hear abuse. We didn’t need to say this to each other; the silence said it all.
For many of us, our stories and experiences from the Seventies to the Nineties caused us to fear nationalist pride in England. It now feels like we’re back in that space. I remember when my uncle was attacked and when I was spat on. My dad remembers public segregation.
Later, my friends and I discussed how we all felt, and there was one word that came up: “Panicked.” It feels like we’re on the precipice of direct violence against people of colour, and yes, we’re starting to panic.
