The St George's Cross has appeared on lamp-posts and roundabouts across England. Now, right-wingers are hoisting the Saltire at anti-migrant protesters in Scotland. Here, Mark McGeoghegan looks at whether the St Andrew's Cross will become a symbol of division

In most nations around the world, flying the national flag is far from controversial. Travel to the United States, for example, and you’ll see the Stars and Stripes virtually everywhere. Such flag-waving, as much as some might look down on it, is a broadly uncontroversial display of national pride for the vast majority of people.

Not so in England. In recent months, the St George’s Cross has been cropping up on lampposts and is being painted on roundabouts across swathes of England. The trend has been partly organic, with individuals inspired by what they’ve seen on social media. But it has also been fuelled and organised by the far right, and against the broader context of sometimes violent protests outside hotels housing asylum seekers, the English flag has once again become a symbol of division and intimidation for some.

This is understandable, and it would be whether the organised far right was involved or not. As Tim Marshall, former Sky News Foreign Affairs Editor and author of Prisoners of Geography, has argued, the historically understated nature of English national identity and only occasional use of the flag, combined with its hijacking in the 1970s by the far right, has infused the symbolism of flag-waving with associations with racism and division.

That’s not to say that symbols of English, or British, national identity cannot be unifying. I was living and working in London during the 2018 World Cup, when England reached the........

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