Last week we looked at the tradition of county flags and this week we’ll look at the flawed belief that the St George/Union Flags are enough to represent the counties and towns of those areas.

Can you imagine the outcry if the European Union or the United Nations decreed that every member territory should fly only the EU or UN flag?! Thinking about it we are represented by those institutions so why would just flying those flags in place of the myriad of national flags we have currently not be a better idea? Surely we could get rid of all the separate national flags?

To have the entirety of the world flying solely flying a UN flag or all of Europe a EU flag seems wrong – overbearing and detached. However this is really only the same as everywhere having to fly only the Union Flag or St George cross!

It’s good to be represented on larger scales but it’s important to be able to have identities for the components of bigger institutions. Imagine a world where every county or town was represented by the St George cross and a rose, which would get very boring very quickly. Worse than that it would be impossible to differentiate between the counties when it mattered (like sports or war etc).

Variety and uniformity both have their own benefits and strengths but to trade one for the other completely can be a mistake. In terms of the flags and identity if we only had uniform higher territory identities life and culture would get rather boring and lack uniqueness. However with only local identity and a disregard for the larger view we would become introverted, selfish and nationalistic.

In summary it’s good to be represented and proud on a large scale (indeed more people should realise that we all share the same planet) but to only be represented on large levels would be stifling and can cause practical identity problems. This is exactly the point of my entire campaign to get the Black Country a local visual identity! It’s simply to give pride and differentiation to our area, and ideally would be flown alongside the flags of the territories that we are also a part of – Britain and Europe. Everyone should be able to be patriotic towards their towns and counties as well as their countries and continents and to express that with strong symbols – so long live the rise of local flags!