Washington Post: For Fans, It’s Time to Let It Fly
Roger Eatwell, a professor of European politics at the University of Bath, said there are several reasons why people were for so long uncomfortable with the flag.
Since the 1970s, the Union Flag and the St. George’s flag have become closely associated with extreme nationalist parties, he said. Those political parties have long festooned their podiums, vehicles and brochures with flag imagery and many people feared that displaying the flag would associate them with racist views. Some businesses banned the flags from company cars and offices, lest they offend.
But recently there has been a move “to recapture the flag” and bring it back into the mainstream, Eatwell said.
“We are taking it back from the far right,” said Joe Darroll, 37, who has two St. George’s flags flying from his delivery van in east London. “Common sense has finally taken over.”
Darren Moore, whose Supporter Flags and Promotions Ltd. company has enjoyed a quadrupling in business in recent weeks, said the surge in flag sales signals an end to English people being “brow-beaten into not flying the flag by the politically correct brigade.”