The Party of Working People's Flag is Only Red in Parts, and Then Only by Coincidence

Reclamation - turning a slur into a badge of pride - can be a liberating and enlightening process, and has been managed successfully in cases ranging from Proudhon's declaration that he was an anarchist to the adoption by non-heterosexuals of the label queer to Ramsey Campbell's maintaining that he just writes horror stories. Unfortunately, Team Starmer's reclamation of the Union Jack from the hard right may still have some small way to go, not least thanks to Team Starmer's open contempt for ethnic minorities, puppy-dog eagerness to join in with anti-woke baying over making the Ingerland Cross look too interesting, and general antipathy to the thought of attracting any voters beyond the Murdoch-reading, car-driving, coal-burning, migrant-baiting, trans-bashing, wog-bombing, Bring Back Boris salt of the English earth. It's difficult to reclaim a symbol from the enemy when one's own real-world values are barely distinguishable.