“I’m going to confess I have not just the St George’s flag, I have St George’s bunting. I have also union jack bunting which is currently still hanging up in my garden shed. I have union jack flags. We have Yorkshire rose flags and bunting as well. I actually even have some Yorkshire Tea bunting but that’s probably going a bit far for your question as well."
She went on "I do I think flags are really important. It’s what brings us together. I do think that people should be coming together around our flags and using the flags to come together and not being used for division."
Asked if people should be putting up flags on motorway gantries, Cooper replied: “Oh, put them up anywhere. I would put them up anywhere.”
Oh, dear, this from a British Home Secretary and a Labour one at that. The nonsense, stupidity, lack of forethought and sheer inappropriateness in Cooper’s comments is worrying and telling in equal measures. It’s difficult to know where to start but to keep it simple I would say to Cooper that you are being worryingly naïve – a quality that should not, must not be present in any politician, let alone the holder of one of the great Offices of State.
Yes, Ms Cooper, the idea of a flag is to clearly and overtly, by its display, bring people together, to “rally around the flag” in battle or in times of national distress or in celebrations, say of Coronation. But, contrary to your claim that they must not be used for “division” that is exactly the hidden function of flags; its covert message is to set apart, to separate one nation or belief from another. A flag is, and is meant to be, a statement of a nation’s exceptionalism; the Welsh flag with its red dragon is a clear statement - we are Welsh and although we are part of the UK we are different from England and the English. “We are us and our tribe is different from yours. We are proud of our tribe or our country and our values and, if necessary, we will bravely defend them against all others – especially those who threaten us." That is the message that flags make real. Flags of opposing teams in football matches are colourful representations of the two tribes of followers from each club; "We are us and we will seek victory over you". It’s what flags are for; to separate our nation against those different from us, the enemy, or the perceived enemy. The Union Jacks waved, for example, at the last night of the Proms are the physical manifestation of the audience lustily singing the patriotic song Rule Britannia: “Rule Britannia, Britannia, rule the waves, Britons never, never, shall be slaves….” Can there ever be a more divisive song than this; we are born to rule and never be in thrall to other nations - and the Union Jack or the flag of St George reinforced this over time; it is exceptionalism in the most colourful and clearest way possible.
The trivial, trite, facile, plain stupid and potentially divisive comments made by Cooper in this interview are quite breath-taking. I wonder will she turn up in the House of Commons draped in a flag of St George tomorrow? Where does she draw the line on flags? Is it alright for me to paint a flag on a roundabout or on road signs as is the current fashion? Can I paint it on the door of any hotel hosting immigrants. The lady said “put them up anywhere”, so why not? Or maybe, since the lady said “put them up anywhere” I can paint flags of St George on the property and homes of any non-white, non-indigenous English people in my village just as the Nazis did in the 1930s when they painted on the front doors of Jewish homes Stars of David as a precursor to the Holocaust. And if not, why not? The Home Secretary is embarking on a very dangerous journey with her ill- considered comments. And, if I am driving down the motorway at 70 mph and one of the flags of St George that now drape motorway bridges across the country should become unhitched and fall on my car windscreen, thus causing a pile up, will I have redress against our nutty and dangerous Home Secretary or Prime Minister – will she be charged for causing the pile up or sectioned for her manifestly mad advice to the electorate to “put them up anywhere”? And if not, why not?
A measure of Cooper’s ill-chosen words and dangerous muddled thinking is the disgraceful reference to “Yorkshire Tea bunting”. Whatever the rights and wrongs of England’s current problems in relation immigrants, asylum seekers, demonstrations, protest and threatening behaviour it is crass and flippant. It might raise a few cheers and grab a few votes in Ms Cooper’s own Yorkshire constituency but it demeans a serious national issue. And, I can assure her, that for many, like me, it is offensive.
And, in a way, that is what I find most concerning about current government policy and Cooper and Starmer’s recent comments. It is lowest common denominator, dog whistle, politics to appeal to the mindless and the easily led. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's master of propaganda would have recognised it instantly. He famously said "There's no point in seeking to convert the intellectuals. For intellectuals will question and would never be converted and would anyway always yield to the stronger, and this will always be 'the man in the street'. Arguments must therefore be crude, clear and forcible, and appeal to emotions and instincts, not the intellect ..... the rank and file are much more primitive than we imagine. Propaganda must therefore always be simple and repetitious."
And this is what Government comment, and increasingly what seems to be government policy (if, indeed, there is a coherent policy) is doing - simple, repetitious, appealing to baser instincts, seeming only to want ape Nigel Farage and his Reform Party and the antics of the declining Tory Party. It’s like children on a playground trying to outdo each other, “My Dad’s bigger than your Dad……..”. I can be more “patriotic”, I can be nastier than you! Reading Cooper’s comments and listening to Starmer, Badenoch, Farage and the rest I wonder – no, I am sure – these people have given up on the idea that there are still decent, moderate, intelligent people in England. There are so few of us, so they believe, that we are of no consequence so let’s frame our rhetoric for the lowest common denominator is the advice from Labour and Tory spin doctors. Are we all now considered by Cooper et al just an unthinking rabble, to be roused and manipulated by incendiary rhetoric – because for Cooper, Starmer, Badenoch, Farage and the rest that is now where the votes are. We’ve seen exactly that in America in the past months and years so why not here in England?
I am 80 years old. Much of the time I look back with rose coloured glasses to a world that probably never really existed except in my own mind. But I find what is happening in England today – allegedly and by repute, one of the cradles of democracy, the land of Magna Charta, the land of, what many envious people across the world call “the mother of Parliaments” – frightening. As a nation we are dabbling with dangerous and explosive people and ideas and those in the public eye, in power or with a voice - like Yvette Cooper - should be more thoughtful and responsible in their outbursts and interviews – not pouring petrol on the flames as this disgraceful interview does.
But, as I say, I’m 80 years old. I’ve seen “patriotism”, flag waving, drums, arrogance, jingoism, and pure prejudice before in a different guise, at a different time and in a different place. I saw it seventy years ago throughout my childhood in Preston. I didn’t like it then as a child; I found it frightening, irrational and even to my young eyes wrong, and I have seen nothing since to alter my views.
Let me explain. When I was growing up in Preston in the 1940s and 50s each Whit Monday the various churches in Preston ‘walked’ through the streets parading their banners and flags. This would start at early morning and go on for much of the day. There was often fear of trouble between the respective religious groups, as they marched. It was very much an “us and them” moment, and when the parades came up New Hall Lane at the end of Caroline Street, where I lived, I was taken to see them. I say I was taken to see the parades, which is true, but such was my mother's hatred and disdain for the Catholic faith that watching the Catholic church parades was never an option - I was kept indoors when "them bloody Papists are marching". But, as the other faiths marched we watched and clapped and cheered. And the groups that my mother applauded most of all where those she called “the free churches”. To my young mind this was all very confusing - why were they "free", and what was so special that they gained my mother's special approval? Why were their banners, flags, costumes, music said by my mother to be better than the others?
But there was one group that was even more special for my mother. Amongst the “walkers” on those Whit Mondays were the Orangemen (why were they called that I wondered as a child?) and at the appointed hour I would be taken to see them walk along New Hall Lane with their banners, drums, flutes, whistles, bowler hats, medals and sashes. "Look at ‘em, Tony" my mother would say as we watched, "they're the best of the lot" These were good people my mother annually reminded me – because, she told me each year, "They keep the Catholics and the Irish tinkers in their place". As we watched the Orangemen walk up New Hall Lane swinging their banners and beating their drums, I can still hear her voice across the years: “If it wasn’t for the Orangemen we’d all be overrun by Catholics and Irish tinkers!”. Now, in 2025 the echoes of my mother’s words have screamed at me as I have watched the demonstrations in Epping and across the land as immigrants and asylum seekers have been “othered” – the message on the streets of Epping and elsewhere in 2025 is exactly the same as the message my mother gave me; a message to hate and despise fellow human beings because they are different.
Now in 2025, it’s not the Irish and Catholics who are going to “overrun” us but the immigrants, the asylum seekers from across the world – they are our new bogeymen. Just as in the first years of the 19th century English mothers threatened their children that if they didn’t behave then the French Emperor Napoleon would come and get them and carry them off, now it is the Syrian or Afghan or Iraqi migrant who is waiting on every street corner to groom or carry away our children, steal our jobs, fill our schools, defile our women, take away our hard earned wealth. Prejudice and hate knows no boundaries in time or space; it just metamorphosises to suit the situation – and flags, jingoism and faux patriotism are just its overt manifestation - a fact that Yvette Cooper has clearly not understood.
And all those years ago, I was very confused. I spent a long time as a child trying very hard to work out the significance of banners showing a long dead king called ‘Billy’ on a horse in a river and waving his sword (I learned later that King Billy was William of Orange and the river was the Boyne in Ireland). It didn’t seem very relevant to my life and I wondered just why these nasty Catholics and Irish had to be kept "in their place" by these Orangemen and what it would be like to be “overrun” by Catholics and Irishmen!
But as I watched the Orangemen parading - middle aged and elderly men all dressed in black with grim faces and black bowler hats - something else began to gnaw at my sub-conscious; I increasingly found them frightening, intimidating and disconcerting - and totally out of place on what was usually a bright spring day. This was a day that was supposed to be a festival, a happy time - brass bands, girls dressed in pretty dresses, smiling faces and cheering crowds - and as a child and in those far off days I found these Orangemen with their drums and flutes and their stern, arrogant faces threatening and thuggish - men to be feared. Still today, when I see on Orangemen on TV in Northern Ireland I feel those old emotions that were set in train in my childhood; Now, in my ninth decade, I recognise in their grim faces, their body language and their strutting demeanour what was behind this facade - it was nothing more that unadulterated, bigoted extremism masked in a cloak of black suited, bowler hatted, genteel, but false, "respectability".
And now seventy years later it's the same strutting, arrogant, aggressive demeanour I see on my TV screen with the reports from Epping and other flashpoints. Even all those years ago my young eyes could recognise in their faces and demeanour the same vitriol, unexplained hatred and bigotry that I heard in my mother's voice. I have never lost that feeling and neither have I ever understood my mother’s animosity as she spoke of the Catholic faith. Such, I suppose, is the nature of simple prejudice and hate – totally illogical, unfathomable, unpleasant, frightening and, ultimately, insidious as it weaves itself into the fabric of our being and our world. It demeans us and makes us all the poorer; it lessens our basic humanity. And that is what is happening in 21st century England, cheered on by our Home Secretary and Prime Minister.
In Epping and across the land jingoism; prejudice, arrogance and aggression is still alive and well, all hiding under the cloak the “respectable” flag waving that Ms Cooper seems so fond of. I read Ms Cooper’s banal but dangerous comments with more than dismay - with horror and anger. She should be ashamed as I am ashamed of what England has become. I am ashamed that I voted for Labour, something I have done all my voting life. The current wave of aggressive patriotism in England and across the world (think MAGA in Trump’s America) represents a belief and value system that is anything but decent or just, or English, or even Christian. It represents the very worst thuggish and prejudiced elements of society, and their extremist doctrines cloaked in "faux respectability" and the “patriotic”, jingoistic waving of the flag as a façade of “respectability” . It is a stain, a festering wound and an affront to common decency and humanity - it is one of the less appealing "English values" that politicians are fond of quoting.
With comments like the ones yesterday from a Labour government there is a great and profound danger of setting loose the dogs of hate and violence. Cooper’s comments are a nod to those who would use patriotism and flag waving to further their ends and usher in dangerous times. When one sets free the dogs of war then they become uncontrollable and destruction and pain are the consequence - think the Somme, think the blitz, think Dunkirk, think Vietnam, Ukraine, think Gaza. And so, too, when the dogs of hate and violence are let loose in society those values become uncontrollable and impossible to rein in and society and its members, both individually and collectively, suffer; it always spins our of control. If you have any doubt about this think of the invasion of the Washington Capital building a few years ago when Trump supporters waving their Stars and Stripes and Confederate flags stormed the American seat of government. For sure, Ms Cooper’s Yorkshire Tea bunting will be of little use when the flag draped mob are marching down my street and the Union Jacks and St George flags are fluttering above the arrogant, aggressive and hate filled faces of rioters in Parliament Square as they hammer on the doors of the House of Commons in London.
