LONDON — It started when the host of the BBC’s morning show
mocked a Cabinet minister, Robert Jenrick, for the Union Jack hanging
conspicuously behind him, next to a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. The flag,
the host cracked, was not “up to standard-size government interview
measurements.”
اضافة اعلان
The host, Charlie Stayt, and his co-host, Naga Munchetty, who
chuckled along, were quickly in hot water. After the BBC came under fire for
disrespecting the British flag, both were reprimanded. Munchetty apologized for
liking “offensive” Twitter posts that joined in the mockery of the minister’s
flag.
Never one to duck a culture-war skirmish, the Conservative
government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson has seized on the flag flap to try
to keep opponents on the defensive and the dissolution of the United Kingdom at
bay.
It decreed that, henceforth, the Union Jack should fly on all
government buildings every day of the year, rather than simply on designated
days. The only exception will be regional holidays when, say, the Scottish
flag, the Saltire, would fly in Scotland on St. Andrew’s Day.
“Our nation’s flag is a symbol of liberty, unity and freedom
that creates a shared sense of civic pride,” said an unbowed Jenrick. “People
rightly expect to see the Union flag flying high on civic and government
buildings up and down the country as a sign of our local and national identity.”
The government, in its revised guidance on flags, noted that in
the United States, the Stars and Stripes flies year-round, not just on federal
buildings but also at schools and in front of polling places. Likewise in
Australia, the national flag can be flown every day of the year from federal
and state parliaments.
Britons tend to be less demonstrative about their flag than the
citizens of their former colonies. Unlike Americans, they rarely hang it in
front of their homes. The Union Jack arouses ambivalent emotions among some on
the left, who associate it with Britain’s imperial past, and in parts of the
United Kingdom, particularly Scotland, where pro-independence feelings run
strong.
That, of course, is precisely the point for a government that is
desperate to avert another referendum on independence for Scotland after
elections there in May in which the Scottish National Party is expected to win
a strong mandate.
The government’s decree does not apply to Northern Ireland,
where flags are a fraught issue between unionists and nationalists, even more
so in the aftermath of Britain’s departure from the European Union.
The fate of the United Kingdom aside, the flag furor is a useful
culture-war issue to keep the government’s adversaries, real or perceived —
such as the opposition Labour Party or the BBC — on the defensive. Whether the
dispute is over the lyrics of patriotic songs or revisionist views of
historical figures like Winston Churchill, Johnson and his allies rarely miss a
chance to wield patriotism as a cudgel.
A few days after the BBC hosts apologized, their boss, Tim
Davie, was taken to task by a Conservative lawmaker, James Wild, for not
publishing an image of the Union Jack in the broadcaster’s 268-page annual
report.
“Do you find that surprising?” Wild asked, to which Davie
replied, “No, I think that’s a strange metric.”
A former marketing executive who was chosen because of his
ability to get along with the government, Davie pointed out that the BBC
promotes Britain worldwide. The Union Jack, he said, flew proudly from its
London headquarters.
Critics on Twitter lost no time lampooning the new reverence for
the flag. They coined an off-color hashtag and attributed it to unhealthy
nationalism, post-Brexit insecurity or cynical politics.
“This may be very ‘20th Century’ of me,” posted Simon Fraser,
formerly the senior civil servant at the Foreign Office, “but I do worry when
politicians start getting obsessive about flags.”
Danny Wallace, a comedian, said it was like “watching a country
in a midlife crisis.”
“We left our partner, said we’d be better off, then our new
relationship didn’t work out, so we lie to everybody about how great we’re
doing and then get a tattoo,” he posted.
Clare Hepworth, a trade unionist, quoted Bill Moyers, a
broadcaster and former aide to President Lyndon B. Johnson, who once said of
politicians who brandish flags, “They’re counting on your patriotism to
distract you from their plunder.”
And, of course, it was another Johnson, Samuel, who in the 18th
century famously said, “patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.”
At a time when the government is winning broad public support
for its coronavirus vaccine rollout — the country’s largest mass mobilization
since World War II — a manufactured row over flags might seem unnecessary.
The Labour Party is already suffering the political equivalent
of oxygen deprivation, its leaders reluctant to criticize Boris Johnson during
an all-consuming health emergency. But in the acrid aftermath of Brexit,
analysts say that the prime minister has calculated that stoking these issues
still has a political payoff.
Last summer, Johnson criticized the BBC for proposing to air two
beloved patriotic songs without their lyrics because they evoked a colonial
past that is at odds with the values of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“It’s time we stopped our cringing embarrassment about our
history, about our traditions, and about our culture,” Johnson said
indignantly. The BBC backed down, and one of the songs, “Rule, Britannia!,” was
sung with words.
The prime minister is scheduled to hold his first news
conference from a White House-style briefing room in 10 Downing Street,
outfitted at a reported cost of 2.6 million £, or about $3.5 million. He will be flanked by no fewer
than four Union Jacks.
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