14/09/2025
Last night, I watched the news and saw it play out all over again. London streets filled with shouting, St. George’s crosses flying, two groups locked in rage.
It scared me.
Not just because of what I saw, but because I’ve been on the receiving end of the far right before. That kind of hatred gets under your skin. It lingers in your body long after the words have been thrown. Seeing those faces again, red with anger, convinced of their righteousness, brought my fear right back.
And yet, I also came across a post that stopped me. Someone shared about an old school friend who had marched in London. He wasn’t there for the grifters or the headlines. He wasn’t waving a St. George’s Cross because, as he put it, that’s been hijacked by racists. He carried a Union Jack. He went because he wanted to feel listened to. Because he wanted to feel proud of his country again.
That struck me. Because beneath the shouting and the anger, isn’t that what so many people are aching for? To be heard. To belong. To feel part of something bigger than themselves.
Fear of danger.
Fear of being silenced.
Fear of losing a way of life.
Fear of being erased.
Fear that nothing holds us together anymore.
Fear, when unheard, calcifies into anger. And anger, unchecked, hardens into division. Division is the soil where hatred grows.
I see this in the therapy room too. Anger is nearly always a shield. Beneath it lies something rawer: fear, pain, shame. When we don’t listen to those softer truths, when we only respond to the surface fire, nothing changes. The cycle just repeats, whether in a family argument or on the streets of a city.
But Britain is more than this.
The St. George’s Cross doesn’t have to be a dividing line. It could be a symbol of solidarity, fairness, and care. Of a country where inclusion is the norm, not the exception. Where people from all backgrounds can belong without being made to feel unsafe, erased, or “other.”
Because this is the Britain I believe in:
• Where courage means standing alongside those most at risk, not shouting at them across the street.
• Where community means looking out for each other, not pulling up the drawbridge.
• Where we dare to listen, even when it’s uncomfortable.
When we reduce each other to labels—“illegals,” “lefties,” “racists,” “fascists”—we strip away the humanity that might allow us to understand. And in that stripping away, no one learns, no one grows. The cycle continues, and the system that feeds on our division wins.
The call now isn’t to shout louder. It’s to listen deeper. To the fear beneath the anger. To the longing for belonging. To ourselves. To each other.
Because real patriotism isn’t about flags or shouting matches, it’s about creating a country where no one has to live in fear of who they are, and everyone has something worth being proud of.
