What was claimed
The Daily Mail published an article with the headline: “Government considers BANNING England flag from being displayed in public”.
Our verdict
The Daily Mail published no such article and the government also confirmed it has no plans to ban displaying the England flag in public.
A screenshot that appears to show a Daily Mail article headlined “Government considers BANNING England flag from being displayed in public” has gone viral on social media.
But it’s fake—the newspaper confirmed it did not publish this article.
It’s circulating amid a social media campaign to raise St George’s and Union Jack flags on lamp posts and other public spaces around the country, dubbed ‘Operation Raise the Colours’ or ‘Operation Raise the Flags’.
The screenshot features a Daily Mail banner and photos of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and a St George’s flag in a green field. It was supposedly written by the Daily Mail’s political editor, Glen Owen and published on 24 August.
The screenshot has been shared with captions including: “I dare them to try this” and “if he does this, the movement will TRIPLE”.
Except, no such article appears on the Daily Mail website, including under searches for articles by the journalist Glen Owen, who was appointed political editor for the Mail on Sunday in 2018. A spokesperson for the media organisation told Full Fact: “I can confirm that the Daily Mail did not publish this article.” We’ve also contacted Mr Owen for comment, and will update this article if we receive a response.
The government also confirmed to Full Fact that they have no plans to ban England flags from being displayed in public.
As we’ve noted before, there are certain legal requirements for flying all flags, including the St George’s and Union Jack flags, such as not obscuring road or rail signs, being well maintained and having permission from the site owner. But “any country’s national flag” does not require consent from the local authority to be flown.
When asked about two Labour councils, Tower Hamlets and Birmingham, removing flags from lamp posts and buildings over health and safety concerns, Mr Starmer’s spokesperson said he “absolutely” supports people flying the St George’s and Union Jack flags.
They said: “I think the PM has always talked about his pride of being British, the patriotism he feels. I think he’s talked about that previously […] not least recently in relation to the Lionesses’ successful campaign in the Euros. Patriotism will always be an important thing to him.”
We’ve seen other misinformation relating to ‘Operation Raise the Colours’ in recent days, including a photo supposedly showing veterans’ homes decorated with England flags as part of this movement, but that was actually for a 2023 Nike advert.
This is not the first time we’ve seen a fake Daily Mail article circulating online, as well as those from other publications including the BBC, Guardian and Telegraph among others. Our toolkit gives you advice on how to navigate bad information online.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the Daily Mail confirmed it did not publish an article with this headline.
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