Union flag changes intended to make people feel ashamed of being British, claims Farage

Nigel Farage said he was “dead against” making changes to the Union flag as he intervened in the Team GB merchandise row.

The former Brexit Party leader claimed changes to national symbols were “deliberate” and designed to make people feel “ashamed” of being British.

His remarks came after the British Olympic Association vowed to stick with tradition for the official Paris 2024 kit following a backlash against its sale of “Union Jack pattern” merchandise in different colour shades.

In a shift from the plain red, white and blue, designers introduced options with squiggles and dots across colours that incorporate shades of pink and purple.

Speaking on his nightly GB News programme, Mr Farage said: “You can just about make out that it’s the Union flag.

“But they’ve decided to add pink and all sorts of colours to it and that is on sale for fans going to the Olympics in France this year to buy and to wear, which led to a great big panic – what on earth would be on the shirts, shorts and kit of the athletes?

“We’ll have to see how the kit turns out… I have to say I think this is really all quite deliberate, an attempt that goes right through much of civil society, right through much of our education system. They want us to basically be ashamed of who we are as people, not proud. I am dead against it.”

It came after a row last month when Nike changed the St George’s Cross on the new England football kit so that the flag, which appears on the back of the collar, also included purple and blue horizontal stripes.

Gareth Southgate, the England manager, said the controversial design could not be described as the St George’s Cross because it was not red and white.

In a rare show of consensus, Rishi Sunak, Sir Keir Starmer, Sir Ed Davey and Richard Tice, the leaders of the UK’s four leading political parties, all criticised Nike over the design.

Nike responded that it had no “intention to offend” and claimed the trim on the cuffs “takes its cues from the training gear worn by England’s 1966 heroes, with a gradient of blues and reds topped with purple”.

On Tuesday, Henry Smith, a Conservative MP and the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on flags and heraldry, suggested a minister should be appointed to take responsibility for protecting the UK’s national symbols.

“It wouldn’t cost any more, it would just fix a point of responsibility in government to make sure that our national symbols are protected,” Mr Smith told GB News.