TODAY England play Germany in the European Championship. Twenty-five years ago the two teams met in the same competition produced a pile of xenophobic newspaper headlines that whipped up images and insults from World War Two – with the Daily Mirror declaring "Achtung" on its front page. Now such sentiment seems mostly absent at least from newspaper front pages.
Wembley today like other sporting occasions will see lots of English flags and symbols. That is as it should be at any football or sporting moment with football fans unashamedly and unapologetically celebrating their national team, heroes and passion for the game.
It was not always thus. For many years the Union Jack was often used by English fans as their flag. In the 1966 World Cup, when England were hosts and won the trophy, the official mascot of the tournament was not an English symbol but a Union Jack one - “World Cup Willie”, a lion wearing a Union Jack jersey emblazoned with the words “World Cup” and the first-ever mascot for the tournament.
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This was not an isolated incident. This was a continuation of England and Britain being seen as synonymous – and of England being the nation that did not feel it had to speak its name because the idea of Britain and the UK was an extension of it. It was also true that at many points various elements of the English ultra-right had tried to appropriate the English flag. And there was the fact that up to the mid-1960s British politics were much more homogenised, with Westminster politics being seen as an extension of England, and the questions of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland much less salient and less about their own distinctive voices.
The period around 1966 became a tipping point. It was a moment of English triumph but also one of the last uncontested British sporting moments – or at least was seen by many in this way, including in Scotland. Yet, post-1966 British politics began to become much more fragmented – with mistrust of Westminster centralisation rising across the UK, alongside the emergence of Scottish and Welsh self-government, while in both nations and Northern Ireland the old ancient regime began to irreversibly crumble.
It is too simple to pose the relationship of England/Britain as being simply about pre- and post-1966. But it is true that the English sense of swagger through winning the World Cup was then met by slow decline from that brief peak – losing to West Germany in the summer heat of Mexico in the 1970 competition and then failing to qualify for the 1974 World Cup in West Germany which Scotland qualified for and returned home unbeaten.
The backdrop to this changing world of football fortunes was an increasingly divided Britain – both in terms of class and nation, widespread doubt and anxiety in institutions and elites. In the 1970s the establishment even worried about whether the UK was governable. It was in this context and with the UK being seen as "the sick man of Europe" that the UK finally – sixteen years after the EEC was formed – joined in 1973.
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This was an era when the UK flew flags less often - certainly the Union Jack. Then along came Thatcher with an abrasive, aggressive British nationalism which claimed the Union Jack as the exclusive property of the Tories and portrayed opponents – the Labour Party, trade unions, miners, local government – as "unBritish". That jingoistic, flag-waving politics did not translate well north of the Border and contributed significantly to the popularity of the campaign for a Scottish Parliament.
Thatcher resigned in 1990, and by 1996 the Tories were hanging on to office against a popular Labour Party. That year saw (30 years after 1966) the European Championship hosted in England, with Scotland qualifying and the whole tournament seen as a huge success. England defeated Scotland, met Germany in the semi-finals and lost to them.
Something more important happened: namely, the re-emergence and reclaiming of the English flag by their supporters. At England games the flag became more ubiquitous, a symbol of pride and not something to be ashamed or embarrassed by.
There have still been moments where people have felt ambivalent or worse about the English flag. This is true of large sections of the Labour Party and many left-wingers – with Emily Thornberry’s comments about seeing an English flag draped out of a window in the Rochester by-election, a particularly acute moment.
Post-1996, with obvious bumps, slowly the English flag and how it was seen as a symbol dramatically changed. It has no longer been something to be ashamed of; no longer associated with the reactionary right. Rather, it represents as the historian Robert Colls, author of This Sporting Life puts it “a quiet patriotism” which does not need to boast or go on about its patriotism too much and is the exact opposite of the tortured political class discussion about “British values”. And there is undoubtedly a class dimension to this – with the flag being embraced more enthusiastically by working-class people.
Related to this is the decline in the popular connection with the Union Jack across the UK. Not only is there no real homogenised British politics outside the theatre and pretensions of Westminster it is no coincidence that the UK Government is now engaged in the rather desperate act of trying to slap Union Jacks on everything it can – from public buildings to even thinking about it on vaccines.
The rise of the English flag tells us something about the state of England. There is an emerging English national dimension and rising sense of English national identity. At the moment this is more cultural than directly political, but if it continues it will have huge consequences for the future of the Union. It can only be a healthy and positive thing if England is to emerge with a democratic, pluralist set of voices coming out of the shadows of Westminster and the British Empire State.
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What Labour, the left and liberals cannot do is shrink away from the idea of talking about, thinking and dreaming of England. That route aids the notion of "England as Britain" and even worse the right-wing hijacking of England and articulation of a reactionary English nationalism which found form and impact in Brexit, and is more than happy to play on the notion of England as victim of enemies at home and abroad to justify the unequal, unfair nature of the UK as it stands.
There are many Englands behind that English flag – and it is time for radicals to embrace it, celebrate the generous stories behind it, and stop the reactionaries and populists appropriating it for the politics of blame and division.
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