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5 British politicians who love flags even more than you do

LONDON — Westminster’s love of flags shows no sign of … flagging.

St George’s Crosses and Union Jacks are flapping across the U.K. following an online campaign dubbed #OperationRaisetheColours.

The guerrilla movement has seen flags hung from lampposts, bridges and even painted on roundabouts.

It comes after a heated summer of anti-migration protests and amid an ongoing national debate about identity.

Now, politicians of all stripes are desperately trying to show that they are true patriots — without endorsing the far right.

POLITICO runs through five politicians totally convincingly getting in on the act.

An online campaign has seen English and U.K. flags hung from street furniture and even painted on roundabouts, amid a heated summer of protests. | Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Keir Starmer

Buttoned-up, lawyerly Prime Minister Starmer has long wrapped himself in the flag, and told the BBC Monday he was “very encouraging” of people letting the fabric fly.

He went one step further, saying he personally always sits “in front of a Union Jack,” and that his family has a “St George’s flag in our flat.” His spokesperson later said they were “limited in how much I can comment on the size of his flag.” A totally normal day.

Yvette Cooper

Not to be outdone, Britain’s home secretary effectively declared herself the biggest flag waver ever to have lived. “I have not just the St George’s flag, I have St George’s bunting,” Cooper told Times Radio. “I have also Union Jack bunting which is currently still hanging up in my garden shed.”

There was no stopping her after that.

“I have Union Jack flags. We have Yorkshire Rose flags and bunting as well. I actually even have some Yorkshire Tea bunting,” the home secretary gleefully added as the interviewers tried to get a word in edgeways.

As for where flags should be hung, here was a policy the hardline Cooper had an unashamedly liberal stance on. “Oh put ‘em up anywhere,” she said. Stick that in the next Labour campaign ad!

| Andy Rain/EPA

Robert Jenrick

Sure, Labour types can talk the talk, but are they willing to put their lives on the line?

Jenrick, the man-of-action shadow justice secretary — talked up as a future Conservative leader — did his duty by erecting a flag halfway up a very tall lamppost.

“While Britain-hating councils take down our own flags, we raise them up,” Jenrick thundered.

Unwilling to stop at just one lamppost, Jenrick had many flags flying by the end of the day with his little gang of pals.

Nigel Farage

A long-standing wearer of Union Jack socks, the leader of Britain’s populist-right Reform UK has said national flags “should, and will, fly across the country.”

He added: “Reform UK will never shy away from celebrating our nation.”

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage’s Union Jack socks. | Erik S. Lesser/EPA

Just to show he meant business, Farage posed with a properly massive Union Jack last week as he outlined the party’s migration plans (although one of his councils has had to rein in over-enthusiastic flag-enjoyers from taking matters into their own hands.)

Boris Johnson

Johnson may be out of the fray these days, but the former British prime minister was a flag-waving trailblazer.

As London mayor, Johnson flew the English flag over City Hall in 2009 in a bid to “reclaim” the symbol from the far right. Johnson’s greatest flag moment came when he was left stranded on a 45 meter zip line waving two Union Jacks during the 2012 London Olympics. Makes you proud to be British.

But beware!

Flags can kill (careers.)

Labour politician Emily Thornberry faced a furious backlash after she tweeted an image of three England flags hanging outside a house with a white van on its drive while Labour was fighting a crucial by-election in 2014.

The post was seized on by critics as a patronizing sign that Labour had lost touch with the country. The van owner demanded an apology. Her boss Ed Miliband said he was “angry.”

Thornberry resigned as shadow attorney general soon after, in what was 100 percent a real story that dominated British political discourse for weeks.

LP Staff Writers

Writers at Lord’s Press come from a range of professional backgrounds, including history, diplomacy, heraldry, and public administration. Many publish anonymously or under initials—a practice that reflects the publication’s long-standing emphasis on discretion and editorial objectivity. While they bring expertise in European nobility, protocol, and archival research, their role is not to opine, but to document. Their focus remains on accuracy, historical integrity, and the preservation of events and individuals whose significance might otherwise go unrecorded.

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