As if from nowhere, England flags on lampposts have suddenly become a political campaign tool.
On the one hand, this is a spontaneous expression of cultural identity and a celebration of English identity. They have national flags in other countries. Why shouldn’t we have them in our country?
On the other hand, flags can lead to crude nationalism designed to mark out a territory for those who belong and those who don’t.
In Belfast, flags mark out areas of political influence. Union flags marking Unionist areas and Irish tricolours marking out areas of the Republican tradition. Academic Dominic Bryan who has studied the phenomena in the city says flags can bring alarm.
“A flag can simultaneously be the marker of official and legal sovereignty and can become the marker of local space… It is emblematic of democracy but also the harbinger of fear. The display of a symbol can be defended as freedom of speech whilst also be criticised as intimidation.”
In short: it’s complicated.
In Birmingham, the flags on street lamps have centred around West Heath, Weoley Castle and Northfield. Birmingham is a city built on immigration from the Irish in the 19th century to post-war South Asian and Caribbean and in recent years from Eastern Europe.
How does this all play out online?
Inevitably, it comes back to Facebook groups where the issue of flags has been highly divisive.
A search on Nextdoor found nothing.
Ofcom have said before that Facebook groups are the primary place where people find out about what’s going on with their council from the age of 24 to 65. So, no wonder it plays out there.
A swift search shows flags can be found in debate in the B37 Facebook group with 30,000 members, Castle Bromwich ‘Official’ Group with Weoley Castle Community with 11,000, B News and Views with 62,000.
In the Alvechurch Road Residents’ Facebook group there has more than 3,000 engagements and 300 shares. This is huge for a community group with 1,800 followers.
On the one hand there are those in the group that say this is an expression of national pride.
And also…
But the range of opinion also leads to other British people pointing out that they feel British but they don’t feel the need to fly a flag. Others say adding a flag halfway up a streetlamp looks as though they are at halfmast. Who died? they ask.
With depressing predictability there is a racist element to the comments. Here on Birmingham Live’s coverage.
And comments which mirror far right tropes.
Elsewhere, Birmingham Live have limited commenting on posts.
And in Birmingham, the far right have arrived. Turning Point UK, a group with links to Donald Trump have been quick to move into the space. The group post video which claims to be of ‘leftists’ in Wythall in North Worcestershire taking down a flag on VJ Day. This has been taken up by Reform in other parts of the country.
Birmingham Live, the Reach plc presence in the city, report one of the group behind the flags says there are 1,500 flags across the city. That would indicate there is serious money behind the campaign. Go online, and a single England flag varies from £8 to as much as £18. That means £12,000 minimum has gone into this.
Not every flag will have come from the group to get the thing off the ground takes time, money and step ladders.
So what does this mean for public sector communications?
Everything is political, says 19th century novelist Thomas Mann. However, flags come with a special kind of politics.
That British hero Winston Churchill was always careful with patriotism. Tradition helped being a country but also patriotism was also the last refuge of a scoundrel.
So, some things to consider.
It’s a community cohesion thing. This is absolutely about how different groups of people from different backgrounds can get along with each other. That’s central to local government communications.
It’s a social media house rules thing. Yet again, I’m going to bang the drum of having a set of house rules. This allows you to take action against people who break them. So, racism and abuse shouldn’t be tolerated. Polite discussion is fine even if it disagrees.
It’s anticipating responses thing. One lesson from Royal British Legion’s social media is to anticipate comments and have some lines to take. So, why Black History Month? Because six million troops from the Commonwealth served including India and the Caribbean is a good response to politely push back with. As ever, always push by sticking to the facts.
It’s a question about the limiting of comments thing. There may be rare occasions when comments do need to be limited. I’m not sure if the flags issue is that point.
It’s a disinformation thing. The space for disinformation and misinformation on this issue is huge. So too is the damage it can cause. UK Government’s excellent Resist 2 resource here is your friend. Any public sector communicator should be breaking this advice out.
“Public communication should strive to be independent from politicization in implementing interventions to counteract mis- and disinformation. Public communication is conducted as separate and distinct from partisan and electoral communication, with the introduction of measures to ensure clear authorship, impartiality, accountability and objectivity.”
It’s a street lighting thing. In my experience, street lighting engineers who work for councils are very black and white people. There is a right answer and a wrong answer. Putting ladders onto street lamps is dangerous. It’s a reasonable message most of the time. But can it appear council jobsworth?
It’s a comms team rota thing. At times of stress, you shouldn’t leave social media to just one person. In cricketing terms, rotate the strike. Have a rota of people who can pick up the baton. Share the sweets.
It’s a police thing. Some of the comments look pretty actionable. But they also highlight areas of tension in the community.
It’s a Facebook group thing. In the General Election, Labour and Conservatives both encouraged supporters to post shareable content into groups and into WhatsApp groups and onto Nextdoor. The flags issue once again shows the importance of groups in the media landscape of communities. This is not new. So, what would sharable content on this look like?
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Creative commons credit: Silver Jubilee boys race, 1977 by Madhava.