At the moment, the countries representing the UK, are still united under one flag. How long this will be so, no one knows. Even now, each of the countries which form the United Kingdom, is fighting for its own independence.

For the first time since 1707, the Scots now have their own Parliament in Edinburgh, and the Welsh their own national assembly in Cardiff. As a result, the Scottish saltire and the red dragon of Wales are much more in evidence.

Is the Union Flag (Union Jack) on its way out?

In 1997, British Airways decided to scrub the Union Flag off the tails of its airliners and replace it with pictures of jackals from Africa and other ethnic designs. Its chief executive, Bob Ayling, said that the airline was no longer a British company with global operations, but a global company that happened to be headquartered in Britain: “We are proud to have been born and raised in Britain,” he explained. “But we want to show Britain as modern, not imperial…We still have our Beefeaters, but we now lead the world in restaurants and in fashion.”

In 2003, a campaign was launched to try and modernise the red, white and blue flag by adding a touch of black to reflect multicultural Britain in the 21st Century. The proposed new flag (see right) was the work of Nigel Turner, an enthusiastic fan of the UK’s transformation into a multiracial society over the past 50 years. The campaign was NOT successful.

2007

More teenagers see themselves as English, Scottish or Welsh rather than British
A YouGov poll carried out by the Daily Telegraph in 2007 found that fewer than one third of today’s teenagers instinctively think of themselves as British rather than English, Scottish or Welsh. But, pressed to say whether they also think of themselves as British, the great majority say yes. Only 10 per cent of the teenage sample, many of them Scots, reject a British identity altogether.

Most people want the United Kingdom broken up
An ICM poll published by the Daily Mail in 2007 suggested that majorities of voters in both Scotland and England now want the countries to split.

The Future?

Will the Union flag be replaced by four separate flags or will all the flags and the Union Jack, be replaced by something else?

Only time will tell.

The next page shows how to fly the Union flag correctly.