Union Jack is treated like filth by fifth columnists who are beneath your contempt

There is an unpleasant instinct in Britain that refuses to die and has now reached a ridiculous low point — a schoolgirl was punished and placed in isolation despite doing absolutely nothing wrong. This is the same reflex that makes self-satisfied, middle-class moralists recoil when they see the St George’s Cross outside a pub, yet magically disappears when they see a Palestinian flag flying in East London.

Courtney Wright, a 12-year-old, was sent into isolation for wearing a Union Jack dress and matching hat — inspired by the Spice Girls — to Bilton School in Rugby. The school had specifically invited students to celebrate their heritage on culture day. Being a child untainted by the cynical, anti-British attitudes of some adults, Courtney took the invitation at face value, dressed to reflect British culture, and even gave a speech about it.

She clearly hadn’t picked up on the unwritten — and vehemently denied — rule: “Don’t celebrate anything British, because that’s racist.”

It apparently doesn’t matter that Britain was the first major power to abolish its involvement in the slave trade, or that it subsequently used its navy to enforce this abolition, punishing other nations that continued trafficking in human beings.

It doesn’t matter how many surveys demonstrate that the UK is among the most tolerant and pluralistic societies in the world, far less racist than many of its European neighbors who still somehow feel justified in mocking Britons as backward bigots in need of being crushed under their supposedly enlightened heels.

What does seem to matter is that, since at least Orwell’s time — and probably long before — parts of the British population have sought comfort in despising their own country.

These people grimace at the sight of our flag, our anthem, or anything that proudly celebrates Britain — especially England — and convince themselves that this disdain makes them morally superior.

It’s the very phenomenon Orwell noted back in 1941 when he wrote:
"It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during ‘God Save the King’ than of stealing from a poor box."

Unfortunately, despite Orwell’s warning, this mindset persists — and has now been supercharged by an imported, Americanized version of racial politics, superimposed onto a British society that has already been profoundly reshaped by mass immigration and a doctrine of multiculturalism.

Unlike pluralism, which promotes peaceful coexistence and mutual respect among people from different backgrounds, multiculturalism takes a very different view.

It asserts that no culture is superior to any other — a belief curiously held most strongly by people living comfortably in the West. Following this logic, multiculturalists argue that newcomers to Britain should be encouraged to cling to and promote their own cultures rather than to adopt British ways — resulting in communities that remain siloed and separate (why wouldn’t they, if given that option?).

This ideology effectively relegates British culture to being just one among many equally valid “lifestyles.” But this ignores an obvious truth: this is Britain. It is not Pakistan, India, or Albania. Pretending that British culture should treat all other cultures as equally important — on its own soil — is a contradiction Britain has never been able to resolve.

Part of the problem is that the working-class torchbearers of British culture — which includes many migrants and their descendants, who came here precisely because of what Britain offers — are excluded from these conversations. Whenever they try to contribute, they are ignored, mocked, or vilified by the very same self-righteous, Guardian-reading liberals who view any pride in Britain as inherently suspect.

Many people have likely concluded that it’s no longer even worth trying to speak up, given the predictable outrage and condescension they face from those who pretend to be morally enlightened.

These so-called “lefties” (who are not truly left-wing, but rather metropolitan liberals with no real principles) are the same sanctimonious sycophants who swoon over every new orthodoxy masquerading as radical thought when it’s uttered by a posh, dull guest at a pretentious dinner party.

They are the same hypocrites who only embrace national pride during the World Cup — largely because a mediocre novelist in the 1990s (thanks for nothing, Nick Hornby) made it socially acceptable for middle-class people to enjoy football again. You can probably draw a straight line from his pallid prose to today’s over-policing of every utterance in Premier League stadiums.

Enough of worrying about what these petty enforcers and their smug admirers think. If they sneer at you, recognize them for what they are: ungrateful malcontents and divisive bores who reap the benefits of living in a nation that invented parliamentary democracy while pretending that waving its flag is somehow a step toward fascism — the very ideology this country gave up its empire and countless lives to help defeat.

And when you’re done seeing them for what they are, ask them which country they would actually prefer to live in instead of Britain. When they splutter and protest, saying, “That’s not the point,” go home, grab your flag, and return to proudly wave it in front of those feeble, whining hypocrites.