Scottish independence: a possible silver lining

There’s been some silly speculation recently about how the flag of the United Kingdom would change in the case of a Yes vote in the Scottish independence referendum on Thursday. One suggestion printed in a number of newspapers was this monstrosity:

The yellow and black parts are taken from the flag of Saint David, patron saint of Wales (which isn’t currently represented on the Union flag, being a subordinate principality of England, not a constituent nation of the Union).

Now, obviously this is never going to happen. It would require a) Scotland to vote Yes, b) the remainder of the United Kingdom to choose to change its flag, which isn’t necessary, and c) for us to choose this ugly variation. Of those conditionals, the first is the only one which seems within the bounds of plausibility.

But if they were all to come true, and we ended up with this hideous flag, at least there’d be one silver lining…

At least when BNP racists say, “there ain’t no black in the Union Jack,” you could point out that there is now. As a bonus, you could point out that both Jews and Asians are now conferred full citizenship rights too by the presence of the yellow cross.

Skinhead thugs have campaigned long and hard to establish the convention that the races allowed to live in a country are determined by the colours displayed on its flag. In an ironic twist, we could let them win that fight, then immediately redesign the flag to include the whole spectrum.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *