St George has been hijacked by the mountain of left-wing groups, as all that represents what’s wrong with being English, says Howard Cox

So why is this sign of being a proud Englander become so pilloried?

Everything decent, respectful, and honest is personified by St George, yet our United Kingdom woke driven elites have relegated April 23 to be just a whisper of any acknowledgement and deemed not worthy of significant national celebration.

The Order of the Garter (founded by Edward III in 1348) is the highest order of chivalry in the country. To this day, St George’s cross still appears on the Garter badge and his image is the adornment of the Garter chain.

Back in 1940, King George VI created a new award for acts of the greatest heroism or courage in circumstance of extreme danger. The George Cross, named after the King himself, bears the image of his namesake St George routing the dragon.

Metaphors of George and the dragon survive from the 9th century – 500 years after his death. Initially these may simply have been depictions of a battle between good and evil.

But the story was cultivated and popularised in the Middle Ages in an anthology of stories about saints' lives, The Golden Legend.

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The profile of St George also adorns many of the memorials built to honour those killed during World War One. Yet utter his name today, and you could be labelled as being a racist and far right-wing fascist.

St George has been hijacked by the mountain of left-wing groups, as all that represents what’s wrong with being English. Used so destructively by those who fundamentally hate England and the English. Sovereignty is a dirty word if you mention it, south of Hadrian’s wall.

But unlike St Andrew, St David and St Patrick days so powerfully and rightfully proudly celebrated correspondingly by the Scots, Welsh and Irish, St George has become a mere postscript to our increasing multi-cultural nation and dare I say it, our increasingly divided nation. St George is now relegated by so many ethnic resident-based groups to be of inconsequence and irrelevant to their plethora of faiths and beliefs.

It doesn’t help when the red cross on a white background, our symbolic English flag, became fair game to be removed by the Football Association driven by Nike’s commercial sponsorship pressure. What were England’s football administration bloody thinking? Well they didn’t think of England, did they? Money talks more than national pride!

It hurts me, and all I speak with, so deeply that being English and white has become so toxic in the eyes of an underlying well-financed powerful anti-English zeolots.

And that is why, as Reform UK’s candidate for London Mayor, I will ensure if I am fortunate to be elected on May 2, our patron saint on April 23 will be celebrated in our Capital City like never before.

And I call on the Prime Minister and the socialist one in waiting to shout from the roof tops how proud they are to be English. Rishi Sunak must order every public building to fly the St George’s Flag on Tuesday for at least the whole week. No ifs, no buts, just do it!

And on April 23, he should also stand side by side with Sir Keir Starmer to show that St George unites them both, in being proud English Citizens. By showing this patriotism, maybe, just maybe, those distrusting apathetic voters may turn up at the ballot box, believing their leaders may indeed truly love England. Of course, this will not happen as shouting for England is not in their psyche.