AS THE Cross of St George continues to appear across the country, unfurled from lamp-post flags and daubed on roundabouts, clergy have offered reflection on the possible motivations for the movement.
The BBC reports that, in August, a group calling themselves the Weoley Warriors claimed responsibility for Union flags and St George Cross flags hanging from lamp-posts in Birmingham suburbs, describing themselves as a “group of proud English men with a common goal to show Birmingham and the rest of the country of how proud we are of our history, freedoms and achievements”.
The flags then started to appear on lamp-posts across the country, with social media fuelling the movement. One man in Worcester, Tom Conway, told the BBC that he had put up more than 400 flags himself. Roundabouts and other street-markings have been branded with the St George Cross.
Some have expressed concern about the motivation behind the movement, and the message it appeared to convey. The spray-painting of a St George’s flag on a wall at St John the Baptist, Ermine, in Lincoln, last week was “an attempt to intimidate”, the Vicar, the Revd Rachel Heskins, told the BBC (News, 29 August).
The anti-racism charity Hope Not Hate reported last month that “while many instances of flags being raised, or crosses being painted on roundabouts or walls, are being carried out by ordinary people inspired by posts on social media”, the Far Right was the “main organising force behind the campaign”.
On Thursday, two red crosses and the words “This is England” and “Christ is King” were sprayed onto the South Essex Islamic Trust’s building in Vange, near Basildon. The Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Guli Francis-Deqhani, issued a statement: “The use of Christian language and symbols as a justification for hatred and intimidation is scandalous and profoundly misguided.”
LUKE LARNERFlags on display at St Andrew’s, Luton
The Revd Luke Larner, priest-in-charge of St Andrew’s, Luton, said this week that there had been a “measurable rise in Christo-fascism in the UK in recent years, which apes what has happened in the US. Seems to be in-vogue for ethno-nationalists to claim the Christian heritage and associated flags, as happens in other religions and cultures, e.g. Hinduvta.”
At St Andrew’s, dozens of flags are hung reflecting an “all or nothing” policy, he said. “The people of God are gathered from many tribes & nations as is reflected by congregations & communities like ours, so having only one national flag up would be wrong. We are pilgrims and strangers in a wearisome land.”
The Vicar of Holy Trinity, West Bromwich, the Revd Neil Robbie, wrote for Evangelicals Now about possible causes of a rise in English or British nationalism. These included the “disruption” of migration. “Shared national identity, which is real but secondary to identity in Christ, is shattered by migration. Without a shared historical narrative, other than ‘colonialism was bad’, and with no shared language, culture or connection, a nation of people separated by history is deeply unsettling.
“The overarching common narrative of the Bible . . . is desperately needed by everyone; and new narratives of church life, with new church culture, need to emerge. . . The church is to proclaim Christ crucified for sin in every generation, working against the sin of segregation and nationalism. Christians need to commit to their local church, with neighbours, rather than travelling to gather in ethnic or class segregated spaces. Segregation is not a congregation.”
On Thursday, the Team Rector of Hodge Hill in the diocese of Birmingham, the Revd Dr Al Barrett, wrote an online account of witnessing a protest outside the Holiday Inn in Castle Bromwich on 24 August. The hotel has hosted asylum-seekers for several years. Alerted to the protest plans, he dropped off flowers on the Saturday and flyers welcoming residents to the church on Sunday as “somewhere safe, welcoming and quiet”.
“As a church, we believe passionately in welcoming refugees and those seeking asylum,” he wrote. “But the protesters would be our neighbours too. Yes, stirred up by powerful forces elsewhere. Yes, their numbers possibly swelled by people bussed in from further afield. But if people did turn up on the Sunday, then we knew a core of them would be from close by. . . People under whose anger lay just the kind of struggles and fragilities that we knew all too well from our own community-building work.”
The decision was made to hand out cupcakes and flowers to “everyone and anyone who would accept them. A bit of colour and beauty and fun. A foretaste of the kingdom of God for all.” A flyer — “You are all our neighbours” — was also printed, with Luke 12:29-30 quoted (”People will come from east and west, north and south, to the feast of the Kingdom of God. And the last will be first, and the first will be last.”).
The group from the church wore hi-vis jackets with “peace chaplain” on the back. The reactions were varied, Dr Barrett wrote in his account. Some rejected flowers and cupcakes, others ignored them, others were “delighted”. There were some conversations “where we were all genuinely surprised to find ourselves standing on common ground” and another where he was told that “the hotel’s full of rapists”. There was “audible and tangible” anger and chants of “Save our kids”. One protestor had helped a hotel resident who had attended the earlier church service to return to the hotel, despite hostility.
He concluded: “What if being present, bearing witness, responding with apparently futile acts of loving kindness, is (part of) the point?”
On Thursday, the think-tank More in Common published the results of a poll, which found that 58 per cent were in favour of displaying more Union Jack and St George Cross flags on public utilities such as lamp-posts and roundabouts. Respondents were split on views on the motivation of those displaying the flags: 41 per cent believed that it was “pride in Britain and support for the flag” while 42 per cent said they were “making a political statement against immigrants”.
A YouGov poll carried out in May and June this year found that 45 per cent would support an immigration scenario whereby no more new migrants were admitted and large numbers of recent migrants were required to leave.
The Rector of the Wellsprings benefice in the diocese of Salisbury, the Revd Gerry Lynch, said on Tuesday that some mini-roundabouts had been marked with St George’s crosses and there had been a “noticeable increase in flags on private homes in both town and villages, but it’s still a small minority, and I haven’t noticed flags on lamp-posts.”
”Coming from Northern Ireland, where flag-flying is used intimidatingly to mark communal territory, I am depressed to see the same practice emerging in Great Britain,” he said.
“But also, the last two decades have seen an unprecedented, rapid, shift in demographics, and there have been significant failures by authorities, from ignoring grooming gangs, to teachers being forced into hiding, to courts blocking the deportation of serious criminals.
“Along with most broadly liberal institutions, the Church of England has been silent about these developments, often dismissing reasonable concerns outright. It therefore has limited moral authority to speak into those concerns, shared by millions who would never attend a protest or picket a hotel. We might do better to engage in some active listening, possibly uncomfortable.”
On Tuesday, the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, told Times Radio that she supported people raising the flag across the country, telling them to “put ‘em up anywhere.”