The school didn’t stand a chance. Bilton School in Rugby tried (clumsily, perhaps) to navigate a Culture Day without turning it into a contest of nationalist symbols. But once a 12-year-old girl turned up in a Spice Girls–style Union Jack dress, the trap was sprung. The child was made to sit out the event, and within days the school was under siege. Threats, abuse, and a torrent of orchestrated outrage followed. The far right had its victory. The school was forced to close early for summer. Mission accomplished.
Let’s be clear: this was never about a girl in a dress. It was about the flag. That bloody rag they love to call the Union Jack, or, more appropriately, the butcher’s apron. Its name in the colonies for the blood soaked into it from Ireland to India. A symbol of conquest, not culture. Co-opted by racists, hooligans, and empire nostalgists, then laundered by pop stars and pageantry. Drape it across a child and you get instant martyrdom the moment someone dares to say: maybe not today.
Let’s not pretend this is about a child simply proud of her nation. It never is. It’s about the parents. About what they want to stage through their children. A twelve-year-old doesn’t wake up thinking about national identity politics. She wears a dress because it’s colourful, fun, iconic. It’s the adults who load it with symbolism, push it into the press, spin it into grievance. The far right knows this theatre well: take a child, wrap them in the flag, and claim victimhood when someone sets a boundary. There is still so much to do, because until we stop letting children be used as props in these manufactured panics, we’ll keep losing ground to those who trade in sentiment and deliver only division.
Flag, Child, Narrative
Courtney’s speech was innocent enough. A schoolchild’s take on Britain as tea, humour and fairness. But it was seized upon by a media and political machine that deals not in nuance, but symbols. The far right doesn’t care about the words. They care about the aesthetic: a smiling white child with a Union Jack being “cancelled” by “woke teachers.” It’s irresistible. They turned a dress into a dog whistle. So when the school tried to defend itself, they did what they always do—unleashed the mob.
This is how reaction works now: find a story, inflate the grievance, demand redress, escalate the threats. It doesn’t matter if the child was well-meaning. It doesn’t matter what the school’s actual policy was. The only thing that matters is the headline, and the sense (however invented) that British identity is under attack.
Let’s remember: for most White British kids, every day is Made in Britain Day. The curriculum is already steeped in empire and monarchy, in wartime heroism and Union Jack triumphalism. From the Royal Family to who won World War Two, from the Blitz spirit to Brexit and Farage, Britishness isn’t neglected. It’s the air they breathe. The idea that one dress on one day is all they get is absurd. What this panic reveals is not exclusion, but the far right’s fear of equality. They don’t want a seat at the table. They want the whole thing cleared.
Starmer’s Silence Is Consent
When Keir Starmer’s spokesman says that “being British is something to be celebrated,” it’s not a defence of pluralism. It’s cowardice dressed up as patriotism. A Labour Party that once stood for internationalism now genuflects before the butcher’s apron, terrified of being called anti-British. But you cannot appease this. The far right’s goal is not inclusion. It’s domination. They don’t want British culture acknowledged. They want it enforced, and weaponised against all others.
A Closed School Is a Warning
Bilton School didn’t just lose control of its gates. It lost the narrative. And that was the point. A few days of media frenzy, a deluge of threats, and now the far right can point and say: Look what happens when you disrespect the flag. They have transformed a local policy decision into a national spectacle, won the backing of the Prime Minister, and sent a message to every headteacher in the country: challenge us, and we will come for you.
This isn’t about school uniforms or culture days. It’s about power. It’s about who gets to define the nation. And once again, the far right has made the butcher’s apron the price of admission.
When will they fucking learn?
