The comments on the telegraph article are exactly as bad as one would expect.
This is like attaching the KGB to the Soviet Army or Nazi officers to the Wermacht to enforce adherence to political ideology. The ideology here is belief in diversity and support for the race replacement project that our immigration system has become.
It cheers me up to see people singing Rule Britannia during the last night of the Proms, and at least the flag being waved is normally that of the United Kingdom. It may be somewhat expansionist, but it’s rousing in a warm way.
Meanwhile, I find it unsettling when people sing La Marseillaise. It’s martial, and of course about killing people. Historians seem to have trouble deciding whose blood is running down those furrows. And that flag is too royal for my taste.(On top of that we usually don’t get series of concerts like the Proms. Instead it’s ceremonies and sports… )
Unless you are irish in which case singing the national anthem and waving the flag at a rugby match are actually dodgy IMO.
Flags really only sprout round here when Ireland are in the (soccer) world cup or European cup. America is really freaky that way. Quite creepy. Plus the pictures of their Glorious Leader in public buildings - not at all like a third world dictatorship, not at all…
Would that be because rugby is an all-Ireland team sport or why?
Well, we in the UK do that too. An awful lot of public buildings will have the official portrait of the Queen hanging around somewhere.
And you do not want to look into the guff that immigrants get subjected to in the naturalisation process if you want to keep any pretense that the UK is not desperately peddling nationalistic propaganda.
It’s rather odd actually. On the one hand the process is intensely suspicious and accuses any applicant of being a cheat and a fraud, on the other hand it force-feeds them propaganda about how wonderful and welcoming Britain is and how great it is that they want to be British.
This would be an interesting project for someone to carry out:
Take this checklist, and apply it to the major London newspapers. How many editorial pages and columnists would score a largely full card? Quite a few come to mind before I’ve even done the research.
It really is a mix of things that people may not know correlate with extremism (e.g. self description as a “patriot”, referring to political correctness as a left-wing plat) and people just outright wearing, “I’m a racist and I’m joining the army to find opportunities to oppress minorities” t-shirts.