Fun With Flags

As a Portuguese person who has made a life in the UK, I never expected that a flag could unsettle me. After all, a flag should be simple: a bit of cloth, a shared emblem of community, something that brings people together in moments of joy. Yet when I see the St. George’s Cross flying from certain windows or painted across the front of a pub, I don’t feel welcomed. I feel warned.

What makes it worse is the way they sometimes appear. Whole rows of flags strung up overnight, as if to make a sudden statement. You wake up in the morning and the street has changed — a silent transformation that feels less like celebration and more like a declaration. For migrants like me, that declaration can be uncomfortably clear: this is not your space.

That’s what makes this so frustrating. Britain’s identity has always been intertwined with migration. Walk through the NHS and you’ll hear dozens of accents at every level, from the consultant to the carer. Look at Britain’s laboratories, galleries, theatres, and orchestras, and you’ll find countless migrants shaping the future of science and the arts. I know because I’m one of them. I came here to work, to contribute, to build a life that connects Portugal’s story with Britain’s. And I’m far from alone.

To turn a national flag into a tool of exclusion not only intimidates the present, it erases the past. This country’s cultural and economic vitality has always come from people arriving from elsewhere — Romans, Huguenots, Caribbean nurses, South Asian shopkeepers, European students and workers. The story of Britain is not a story of purity, but of mixture.

When I walk past a row of houses, each one flying the same stark cross, I don’t see pride. I see fear — fear of change, fear of difference, fear of a future that doesn’t look exactly like the past. That fear hides behind a symbol, but its impact is real. It makes neighbours feel unwelcome. It makes streets feel divided. It makes people like me, who came here to live and work in good faith, question whether we will ever truly belong.

But a flag is not inherently hostile. It’s a blank canvas we project meaning onto. The St. George’s Cross can be an emblem of intimidation, or it can be reclaimed as a symbol of inclusivity, resilience, and shared belonging. Imagine if flying the English flag was a way of saying: You’re part of this story too.

Photo license: Wikimedia Commons