We learned this spring that a version of British Rail is coming back, but this time rebranded Great British Railways. This might sound like it signals a national nervous breakdown, but it has rarely been wise to bet against self-aggrandising patriotism. Time and again, history has shown that the nation trumps everything. Faith, social solidarity and revolutionary principles struggle to compete with the rallying power of the flag. Under assault from Nazi Germany, even Stalin felt obliged to tone down the Bolshevik rhetoric and turn up the talk of a Great Patriotic War. We might wonder at why the imagined communities of nations exert such a grip, but it’s pointless to deny that they do.
So perhaps it’s not surprising that flag-mania is back. As Chris Mullin explains on p16, it is being enthusiastically led by a government in a newly nationalist mould—one that is proving unusually popular. I don’t know about you, but in my neck of the woods I’m now spotting a few more flagpoles popping up in gardens. But if history teaches us about the power of the flag, it also teaches the dangers. Once affection for your country hardens into nationalism, it is a short slide into chauvinism, intolerance and conflict. A defensive fixation on protecting “the nation” in the abstract can go handin-hand with an authoritarian attitude towards individual citizens. Hence Mullin fears we could be on a path towards a fresh referendum on withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights; and then, potentially, a second on restoring the death penalty.