The campaign to ban England flags is ridiculous

This week I wrote a story for the Packet about a Facebook campaign trying to get England flags banned in Cornwall and the whole time I was working on it I thought what a terrible idea.

The campaign carried photos of people burning English flags and had backing from the Kernow branch of the Celtic League (although I have to say they did not advocate burning the flags). Both camps kept saying that the reason behind trying to ban the St George's Cross because it was a foreign flag but there's a flaw in that argument .... it's not.

I'm a proud Cornishman but I'm English first and Cornish second and like it or not so are all Cornishmen because officially, despite what any archaic campaign will tell you, Cornwall is county in England. It may be a county with it's own identity and proud heritage, but it's still a county like Surrey, Lincolnshire or Yorkshire - all places where football fans will be supporting England trouble-free.

If we completely separated ourselves from the rest of the country then sport down here would die and that includes rugby - probably Cornwall's most serious sport - because almost every club at a decent level competes against sides north of the Tamar and if we were separate it would be harder to arrange fixtures and take away a healthy chunk of the competitive edge.

You don't hear about sportsmen who have made it to represent England getting slated for playing for the "enemy" and rightly so, because it would tarnish their greatest personal achievement. So why should it be different when football fans here in Cornwall want to support their national team?

There's also a vital flaw in the argument that a campaign not to support England in Cornwall is the same as in Ireland, Scotland or Wales. All of those countries have their own national football teams, it is natural not to support England if you have your own national side to support, but we in Cornwall don't, largely because we are part of England so our national team is, you guessed it, England.

When I worked on the story I was relieved to hear that most people branded the Facebook group as racist and that shops in Falmouth were going to be selling England flags, bibs, balloons and all sorts of other things. I'm looking forward to having World Cup fever and looking forward to supporting England despite what some deluded Cornish nationalists think.