If you’ve left your house lately, you’ve probably noticed the sudden explosion of flags everywhere. Union Jacks and St George’s Crosses on lampposts, roundabouts, vans, people’s bloody dogs. It’s all part of something called Operation Raise the Colours – which sounds heroic until you realise it’s just a bunch of angry blokes mistaking nationalism for intimidation. They’ll tell you it’s about pride. They’ll tell you it’s about “loving their country.” But is it? Really?
Because if you actually listen to what these people say – not what the media says about them, but what they say – it’s not pride. It’s panic. They think the country’s being overrun. They think it’s becoming a Muslim state. They think British culture is dying and that immigrants are draining the system. They think they’re paying for everyone else. They think they’ve been silenced. They think they’ve lost something – their voice, their space, their country. And I’ll be honest – I get it. I understand the feeling. Things have gone to shit. People are skint, ignored, and angry. The trains don’t work, the NHS is on life support, and your rent costs more than your organs are worth on the black market. You’re pissed off. Fair enough.
And look – some of what they say isn’t wrong. Integration is an issue. I don’t care who you are, if you come to live in a country, you learn the fucking language. You follow the country's laws, you respect women, you take part. It’s not racist to say that, it’s just manners. You don’t move into someone’s house and tell them how to arrange the furniture. British culture’s not perfect – Christ, it’s mostly sorrys and sarcasm – but it’s ours. You don’t get to ignore it. If you want to live here, live with us. That’s fair enough.
But that’s where the logic ends. Because none of that justifies turning into a flag-waving, immigrant-blaming maniac. You don’t fix a broken NHS by screaming at a kebab shop. You don’t solve housing by shouting at people with darker skin. You don’t build community by flying a flag to intimidate half of it. You can be right about some of the problems and still be completely wrong about the causes.
And that’s the thing – they’ve been sold the wrong cause. They think the country’s fucked because of immigrants. It’s not. The country’s fucked because the people who run it are. The rich have turned the place into an ATM that only dispenses upwards. The government’s privatised everything that wasn’t nailed down, and the rest they just sold off cheap to their mates. Public money siphoned straight into offshore accounts – and while that’s happening, the same bastards tell you it’s the refugees’ fault you can’t see a GP. It’s genius, really. Blame the powerless. Keeps everyone busy punching sideways while the people at the top nick the lot.
Flags don’t fix that. Flags don’t fix anything. They’re symbols, not solutions. You can’t wallpaper over a collapsing country with nylon. You can’t make life better by terrifying your neighbours. The only thing a flag fixes is the illusion of control. “Look, we’re doing something!” No, you’re not. You’re dressing the wound and ignoring the knife. Because the truth is, waving a flag doesn’t make you proud – it just makes you loud.
They say it’s about showing love for Britain. Alright – where’s the love then? Where’s the love when kids are eating out of food banks? Where’s the love when nurses are using payday loans? Where’s the love when pensioners freeze to death in winter? If you loved your country, you’d be furious about that. You’d demand better. You wouldn’t be standing outside a mosque with a flag like a prick. You’d be outside Westminster with a torch.
And this idea of “lost culture” – give me a break. You haven’t lost your culture. You’ve just realised it was never as pure or special as you thought it was. British culture isn’t dying, it’s evolving. Always has. It’s a mash-up of everything that’s ever washed up here. Romans, Vikings, Saxons, Huguenots, Windrush, South Asians, Poles. You don’t own Britishness – you rent it – same as the rest of us. It changes with every generation. You can’t freeze time just because you’re scared of the future. Culture isn’t a painting in a museum – it’s a pub on a Friday night. It changes every time someone new walks in.
What’s actually happened is that people have mistaken change for loss. They see a kebab shop where the chippy used to be and think, “We’ve lost Britain.” No, mate – you’ve just got more options for dinner. The Britain you’re mourning never existed the way you remember it. The only thing that’s really disappeared is your comfort with not being the centre of it anymore. That’s not cultural erosion, that’s growing up.
And all the while, the people who are actually robbing you blind are laughing. They’ve turned division into a full-time industry. The government slashes services, guts the economy – then blames the people at the bottom for the mess. The tabloids print headlines about boats while the Chancellor signs off tax cuts for billionaires. It’s a magic trick. Look over there – not up here. You’re not supposed to see the offshore accounts, the private jets, the insider deals. You’re supposed to see the bloke in the dinghy and lose your shit. As long as they can keep you arguing about who belongs, you’ll never look up to see who’s getting rich. They’ve got you scrapping over crumbs while they’re walking off with the cake. That’s not patriotism – that’s volunteering for your own mugging.
Immigrants are not draining the country. They’re not. They keep the whole bloody show running. They’re the doctors patching you up, the carers wiping your nan’s arse, the delivery drivers getting your dinner to the door. They pay their taxes. They work their arses off. They prop up the parts of Britain that are still working while half the Cabinet’s fiddling expenses. You could deport every single immigrant tomorrow and you’d still be broke. Why? Because the problem isn’t who’s coming in – it’s who’s cashing out. Your rent’s through the roof because landlords are allowed to take the piss. Your bills are high because companies are squeezing you dry for profit.
Here’s what’s really going on. Britain’s been asset-stripped. The wealth that used to belong to everyone has been funnelled to a few. The tax system’s a sieve. The government is full of gutless wankers who are terrified of taxing the rich because the rich own the government. The middle class has been hollowed out, the working class has been blamed for everything, and everyone’s been told to shut up and wave a flag. Immigration isn’t the biggest issue in Britain – greed is. Corruption is. Cowardice is. But it’s easier to shout at a foreigner than a billionaire. The billionaire might sue. The foreigner can’t afford a lawyer.
And that’s the real tragedy – those raising the flags are right that things are broken, they’re just catastrophically wrong about why. The country is in decline. The economy is failing. Public services are collapsing. But it’s not immigrants. It’s the same story everywhere: those with the most give the least, those with the least get blamed for everything. You don’t need to raise the colours – you need to raise your fucking standards for who you vote for.
So let’s talk about what real patriotism looks like. It’s not waving a flag, it’s fixing what’s under it. It’s boring, it’s hard, and it doesn’t fit in a tweet. Real patriotism is helping your neighbour, supporting your schools, and holding your leaders to account. It’s being honest about what’s broken and working together to fix it. Not standing on a street corner shouting “rule Britannia” at passing cars. That’s not patriotism, that’s performance art for people who’ve run out of ideas.
You want to love your country? Then do the work. Don’t just sing about the empire – build something worth being proud of now. Demand that the government fund the NHS properly. Pay teachers properly. Build homes that aren’t shoeboxes. Make the country fair again. That’s love. That’s effort. That’s actual pride.
Because real pride isn’t loud. It’s quiet, steady, relentless. It’s the nurse who finishes her shift and still picks up her kids. It’s the bus driver who gets you home. It’s the volunteer at the food bank who doesn’t ask questions. Those people are the backbone of this country, not the ones zip-tying flags to lampposts.
And community – that’s the bit we’ve lost. Not culture, community. Knowing your neighbour’s name. Saying hello. Looking out for each other. That’s British. Always has been. But we’ve replaced it with suspicion and slogans. Everyone’s angry, everyone’s scared, and everyone’s too busy being right to be kind. If you want to raise something, raise your hand to help. Raise your voice for fairness. Raise your expectations of what this country can be. Because flags eventually tear in the wind, fade in the rain, and end up in the bin, but the problems remain. All we've got is each other.
So, Operation Raise the Colours. Fine. Let’s raise them. But not as warning signs. Let’s raise the colours for fairness, decency, empathy, and fucking effort. For the nurse, the teacher, the builder, the cleaner, the kid trying to make something of themselves. Stop waving bits of fabric like it means something. It doesn’t. What means something is how you treat people. What you fight for. What you fix.
If you really love this country, stop shouting at it. Start fixing it. Stop blaming the poor. Start blaming the powerful. Because you don’t prove you love Britain by intimidating your neighbours – you prove it by not being a fucking idiot.