Today we celebrate St George’s Day, the patron saint of (amongst others) England …
Stone Cross St George’s Day Parade. Picture: Express & Star
… or do we?
While people around the world and even in the rest of the UK mark their national days with public holidays, festivals and binge drinking in silly hats, St George’s Day is largely ignored despite opinion polls suggesting that as many as three quarters of us think it should be a public holiday.
Over the years we have been told that Englishness is sinister and offensive and that our national flag is linked inextricably with racists. We have been told that we can never have our own government or national institutions even though there is overwhelming support for it and that we must be British for the sake of the union. British politicians will go to great lengths to avoid saying the word England or even acknowledging the existence of an English identity despite most people in England defining themselves as English, not British.
In 1997 the British government gave Scotland and Wales referenda on creating their own devolved governments and in both cases the people of those nations voted for home rule. In 2004 the British government scheduled referenda in the 9 euroregions of England to create regional governments and cancelled them all after 78% of people in the north east of England rejected it in the first referendum. Since then, Wales has had a second referendum to give the Welsh government more powers and the Scots have their independence referendum later this year. The English have never been given a say on how they want their country to be run and the campaign to break England up into regions has been revived with backing from the Conservatives, Labour and the Lib Dems. There is a determination to abolish the English nation and it is gathering pace.
It is not racist to be proud to be English or to fly the English flag and it is not unreasonable to expect our country to be treated fairly and equally within the union. That’s why I would urge all my readers to pledge to support a new campaign for a fair deal for England …
