SHAME: So where was Gideon Falter during this REAL hate march then?

Right, so pride, patriotism, flying the English Flag on St George’s Day, is this something you do? Is this something you take pride in? If so why? Now I’m not one such person, I’ll say this up front, but then I consider myself Cornish rather than English, I have no issue with flags per se, the Cornish Flag of Cornwall’s Patron Saint, St Piran, is incorporated into my logo, it’s nice to have pride in your roots and flags certainly symbolise that. The trouble is, the English Flag, much like the Union Flag, is becoming more and more a source of shame for a lot of people and for no small wonder when we see what is being done in our name and who is being seen as representative of British patriotism, more and more being seized upon by the far right, more and more seen as a symbol of racism and not national pride, not to mention a symbol of hypocrisy too, especially amongst our political class because St George wasn’t just the English patron saint after all.
Right, so, St George’s Day, not a day many of us will have celebrated, unlike other saint’s days we don’t get a bank holiday for it for one and that might be one reason why scenes like this happen every year, the day being marked by scenes such as this, the far right draping themselves in the flag claiming as they so often do to be patriots, expressing civic pride by getting pi**ed as a newt and causing chaos in the streets, fighting with the police, with 6 arrests ending up being made. Whilst it is just an ordinary work day for most of us, in large part probably not even acknowledging it even was St George’s Day since it makes no difference to us, it gets left to the likes of this bunch to mark the day and therefore the day gets remembered for scenes like this, rather than anything remotely to do with national pride. It becomes a day or national embarrassment and shame instead as this is how the eyes of the world see the English. No doubt apart from wearing the flag, they probably have it plastered all over their social media as well, along with the word patriot no doubt. Well, there’s nothing patriotic in the police needing to organise a response that requires riot gear is there? One of these a*seholes yesterday actually hit a police horse with their umbrella.
It's no wonder the English Flag is seen more and more as something to fear, as something representative of far right ideals rather than anything else, not helped by the presence of people like Tommy Robinson and all in a ll it looked very much like the far right’s last show of fake patriotism last year, when the Cenotaph was desecrated.
Due to how the flag has been adopted in the way it has by the far right in this country, it has arguably become more a symbol of racism and this isn’t even a recent thing, because for decades it’s been used as a symbol of white supremacy, of leftover imperialistic leanings, for people of colour it is a symbol of something to fear and this was spelt out on Good Morning Britain by guest Dr Kehinde Andrews, Professor of Black Studies at Birmingham University who said:
‘The English Flag isn’t just a symbol of racism, it may be the primary symbol of racism in this country, because of how it has been adopted and co-opted by the far right. In my mum’s generation it was keep Britain white and being chased down the street being called a m**key. In my generation it was the National Front telling me to go home and now you have the EDL the BNP and all these other groups right? And to be fair, if all the same people hurling out all this abuse, waving this flag, having it tattooed on their chest, then what else could it possibly be?’
Scenes such as those in London that we saw, it’s pretty hard to disagree, especially with the lived in experiences he and his family and absolutely so many other people of colour in this country have experienced. Dr Andrews summed it up well further on in his interview when he said unless it is a match day, seeing that flag being flown in a pub meant it was a no go zone – a real no go zone, not the fake ones again right wing voices claim exist in this country and naturally they were full throated in their opining on these scenes of disruption in London.
Former Tory Party Campaign Organiser and media mouthpiece Sophie Corcoran took to twitter deciding to do a yeah but what about Just Stop Oil attack on the police for taking to task these ‘patriots’ and not peaceful protesters blocking roads. It’s called upholding the law, a little thing called causing a public disturbance. I know it offends your sensitive snowflake right wing proclivities, but people are still allowed to protest. She also wrote whilst captioning Just Stop Oil protesting and the scenes from London with the police:
‘Police when you’re woke breaking the law, vs police when you wear an English flag on St Georges day’
Again, Just Stop Oil weren’t breaking the law. Stamp your tiny feet, scweam and scweam until you’re sick, but it doesn’t change anything. Good of Soph to bring up the far right swathed in their flags and reinforce the opinion of Dr Andrews I felt though, when noting the need for the police to step in there.
She was particularly vocal as another tweet of hers also bears mention, again attack the police:
‘They stand there and watch just stop oil break the law They stand their and watch Palestine protestors use extremist language and support terrorism But all of a sudden they learn how to police when a bit of patriotism is involved.’
No doubt someone will have spotted the grammar and punctuation mistakes of this so-called journalist there, I’ve left them in as I’m quoting her directly, so don’t have a go at me for them, but it tickled me no end that Corcoran now chose to attack Palestine protesters too, because when as the title implied I asked where was Gideon Falter in all of this, this disruptiveness and if Corcoran bothered with research too, she’d know that St George isn’t just the Patron Saint of England, he’s also the patron Saint of Palestine. You’d imagine Falter and his ilk ought to be calling the entire celebration of St George antisemitic then surely?
St George was a Roman Soldier, his mother was a Palestinian and he never came to England, so he has more in common with Palestine, more times to Palestine than he ever did to England, but then he’s also a Patron Saint in Ethiopia, Brazil, Iberia, Bosnia and many other places besides. The only link he really has to those swathed in flags disrupting the police in London in my opinion, is that he also happens to be the Patron Saint of skin disease sufferers and syphilis.
Of course being tied to Palestine via Patron Saint certainly isn’t enough to sway our politicians either, who do little to discourage the abuse of the flag when frankly they do it themselves, weaponising it for political gain. None have been more obvious about that than Keir Starmer, who is frankly running of places to stick more flags up around himself, has now got it plastered all over Labour membership cards, but equally, when the flag has come to symbolise right wing leanings, is abused by the far right as it is, to see any politicians doing likewise becomes off-putting too. Starmer put out a gushing video yammering on about pride and national identity, yet how can we be proud, especially when it’s coming from him, when he supports Israel, still committing genocide in Palestine, the flag of Saint George, also being a flag flown there, the red cross on white background has been his symbol since the Middle Ages, it’s not actually unique to us, owned by us, just because we tend to use it more. The flag has become a symbol of division in our society, not cohesiveness, yet Starmer has also said he wants to use the flag as a symbol of patriotism, a mark of patriotism. Why? Jeremy Corbyn again. Yes, the jam making vegetable botherer is still living rent free in Starmer’s head, his justification is because under Corbyn, the Labour Party was seen as not patriotic. Why is that? Because he wouldn’t bow low enough to the Queen? Those scenes on the streets of London are how that flag and patriotism go together. It’s horrible. Public services crumbling, we’re all harder up and worse off, and he wants to talk about flags making it better.
If you want to make the flag a symbol of something good again, then do something about it. Jeremy Corbyn had planned on making St George’s Day a Bank Holiday. Everyone could then celebrate it, how that flag comes to be remembered could be far different than it is now, being allowed to be dictated by the far right, and just talking about flags and standing against flags like Starmer insists upon, just makes you look like one of them. Make it stand for something different, or is that not possible because it was Jeremy Corbyn’s idea?
As for the Tories because who could leave them out of this, they solidly reinforced the belief that the flag symbolises racism as their rancid Rwanda Bill happened to pass on St Georges Day. If that doesn’t sum up the meaning of patriotism in England in this day and age here and now I don’t know what does and nothing sums Tory failure up quite like it does either as this video recommendation will fill you on all the reasons that Bill will still fail and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.