Stevenage, England, a tide of red and white, is rising through England, rise in street lamps, attacked at pedestrian crossings, trapped in apartment windows.
Those behind this insist on this campaign to raise the English flag, known as La Cruz de San Jorge, is an expression of patriotism; Others see the sudden prevalence of the banner, sometimes associated with hooliganism and football racism, as a hostile statement of a feeling of extreme right.
The feverish debate was globalized this week when Elon Musk, former advisor to President Donald Trump and the sponsor of extreme right movements worldwide, published a photo of the flag in X. Vice President JD Vance also organized his last intervention in British life, urging people to “go back against the crazy people” who criticize flying the flag.
‘Operation elevates colors’
In a country where the national flag is rare outside the sporting events, the banners that now flutter over a road here in Stevenage are typical of those that appear throughout the country in recent weeks as part of the “base operation”.
The flags were placed here last week by a group of five people that includes Louis Turvey, who read about the National Movement on Facebook, where he said he receives most of his news.
Turvey, 33, who has a Roman and gypsy heritage and was raised in London, 30 minutes by train, says that in no way was it motivated by feelings of extreme or hostile. Rather I wanted to do something positive and fly its national flag “as you see on vacation in Greece or Spain,” he said.
“I saw all the flags up the country and I thought: ‘How charming is that?’ But I went to a little trip on the way to Stevenage and I didn’t see any, “said Turvey, a former demolition worker with Auburn curls, hipster mustache, low button shirt and a single ear, to NBC News on coffee in a nearby Starbucks. “I kept thinking: who is going to do it” here? “Well, you know what, I will.”
He met his flag companions through his online mango “Stevenage Patriots” and had never met them before, he said. “I am gay and many of my friends are girls, so I was quite nervous for staying with four consecutive boys,” he added. “But it was such a charming night, quite spiritual, quite relaxing.”
However, he soon experienced how loaded this debate has become when, just when his group was packing, someone threw two Molotov cocktails, the second cutting Turvey’s head and covering his face with blood. “I thought I was going to die,” he said, visibly shaken by an incident that, according to an incident, has pause his flag activities at least.
Critics see the darkest forces that support the broader flag campaign.
Come this land as little more than an aggressive and provocative message for people with a history of non -white immigrants and residents.
The Hope Not Hate anti-racist campaign group reported that the founders of Operation Raise the colors include “extreme right-wing” and allies of Tommy Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, a convict scammer with a violent criminal history that has become a leading nationalist voice in Great Britain. In fact, Musk himself has used his 223 million audience to express support for Robinson, as well as other extreme right figures in Great Britain and throughout Europe.
NBC News Messed The three administrators of the operation raised the Facebook page of colors, asking for comments and interviews with these founders, but did not receive an answer.
These fears are widespread. When a cross of San Jorge was painted on the wall of the church of San Juan Bautista, in the city of Lincoln, La Vicario, Rachel Heskins, saw him as a clear “attempt to intimidate” the diverse local community.
“The Cross of San Jorge has become a symbol of nationalism that has been confused with patriotism: the two are very different,” he told the BBC.
All this occurs since immigration is now the main topic for voters in England, since they have only exceeded the cost of living that accelerate to millions, as the surveys show. The most popular political party is Reform UK, led by Trump Ally and his friend Nigel Farage, who recently said he would carry out a mass deportation of 600,000 people if he won the next elections in 2029.
The national identity in Great Britain is doubly complicated because the United Kingdom includes the nations of England, Wales and Scotland, and the Northern Ireland province. During the World Football Cup and on some holidays, the banner of England is widely used by people of all political and demographic stripes, but outside those events it has been co -opted by nationalists, the extreme right and even fascists.
All data show that most people in Britain are becoming more tolerant and less racist, said Sunder Katwala, director of British Future, a group of experts focused on identity. But the small minority that has extreme and racist opinions has received a megaphone and a meeting place for poorly regulated social networks, he said.
That is undoubtedly the experience of Moj, 44, a British with inheritance of Bangladesh, sitting with his 11 -year -old daughter in the post -war city of Stevenage.
“I remember being a child and being called all kinds of racist names. I don’t understand that anymore,” said Moj, who like many in this 80,000 city refused to give his second name for fear of the local reaction.
Despite the improvement, the flag still has negative connotations for him. “In certain areas, if I see an English flag, there is always a part of me that thinks, well, I have to be a bit careful here,” he said.
Stevenage was dreamed in 1946 as an example of modernism of “New City”, an integrated residential-commercial space in which it houses families scattered by war. Today, despite a regeneration scheme of £ 1 billion ($ 1.35 billion) on the road, its weed and glass windows dated feel like an encryption for Modern Britain.
As is the case throughout the West, many British are increasingly concerned and angry about the increase in prices, decrepit public services, the lack of housing and the perception that immigration has been poorly administered.
All this leaves “the United Kingdom sitting in a box of disconnection and division plaster,” according to a long report last month by British Future. Composed of the crisis of the cost of living and supercharged by social networks, this is “turning the chronic crisis of social disconnection into a sharp threat of social division.”
Turvey hanging flags in his community and then hit by a Molotov cocktail saw that these divisions became life. He was bandaged, received stitches and gave a statement to the police, although he did not see his attackers and has not had news of the officers since then, he said.
At first, he thought that the blood that fell into the face was acidic (acid attacks are increasing in the United Kingdom), and said that the incident has only added to chronic anxiety derived from a homophobic attack in 2018.
Although it decreases any form of racism or negativity associated with the movement of the flag, it says that part of its motivation arose from the perception that the current Labor Government “is not on the side of the English” and “that is why people are so annoying at this time.”
In fact, surveys show Laborists in their lowest support since 2019, sinking only 20% of the vote in a Yougov survey this week. The Farage Reform Party, meanwhile, has shot at 28%, according to the same upper pollster, the highest of any party but not enough to govern without a coalition, a national vote held today was held. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has taken an increasingly hard rhetorical line on immigration.
It is under pressure to deal with the crisis of “small boats”, in which more than 50,000 people have reached small and insecure ships throughout the La Mancha channel since France since it won a choice of landslides last year. Meanwhile, the Government won a battle of the Supreme Court on Friday so that asylum seekers can continue to be housed in an EPPING hotel, northeast of London, a site that has caused numerous protests and counterproteces.
RUMPLEO Under this is the so -called cleaning gang scandal: the sexual exploitation of young women and girls by men in British cities and cities. A review in June that found that, although most of the alleged perpetrators were white, in some areas there were higher rates of Asian and Pakistani inheritance men than their equivalent participation of the population. At the same time, the review warned that many of those who claimed indignation were simply trying to “spread division and hatred between communities.”
And so, in the midst of all this, the English flag goes up.
“There are probably one or two locations where it is organic and started from below,” said Katawala, director of British Future. “Then there is another group, again, it is a fairly small group, which is very politically very radicalized, you know what you are doing and why you are doing it.”
