In my town 3 mini roundabouts have been painted with St George's cross and a couple of Union Jacks and St George's flags have gone up too. After reporting the graffiti to the local council they decided it wasn't their problem so instead I reported it to the police because:
A person who, without either the consent of the highway authority for the highway in question or an authorisation given by or under an enactment or a reasonable excuse, paints or otherwise inscribes or affixes any picture, letter, sign or other mark upon the surface of a highway or upon any tree, structure or works on or in a highway is guilty of an offence and liable to a fine...
Doing so is an offence under Section 132 of the Highways Act 1980, now, will the police actually do anything? Of course not. But please report it anyway, you can find out who your local police is, or who covers where the graffiti was, here.
But why are people painting St George's cross on roundabouts and putting up English flags everywhere? Short answer: racism. Longer answer: racism and some people are unable to think for themselves. Welcome to "Operation Raise The Colours" or "we wanted our xenophobia to sound military and hardcore so we stuck two semi-military phrases together using our shared brain cell as the glue", to be fair the first one is catchier.
ORTC is an initiative that has plausible deniability, 'what's wrong with putting up your own country's flag', 'you're unpatriotic', 'I'm showing pride and uniting my community' and while a small number of people may genuinely believe that, they must accept that their actions are intimidating to others, you do not have the right to cause fear, alarm or distress to those around you. 'But why is putting up my country's flag intimidating?' The political leaders you're following want to spread fear among immigrant and non-white non-anglo communities, that is their day job, and by copying them you too are spreading fear, whether you mean to or not, and that is unacceptable.
If the raising of a flag associated with football hooliganism and xenophobic riots was uniting the country you'd expect everyone to be joining in, painting anything that stands still longer than a few seconds or attaching bunting to every victoria sponge but only a few groups are supporting and promoting ORTC, let's check out who:
Weoley Warriors (a anti-immigration group based in Birmingham)
Britain First (a fascist political party)
Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (also known as 'Tommy Robinson' a fascist activist)
Nigel Farage's Reform Party (a far-right anti-immigration party with 4 MPs)
and a couple of Tories jostling for party leadership (Robert Jenrick and Chris Philip)
That doesn't sound like "uniting the country", it sounds like the worst house party I've ever heard of. Speaking of terrible house guests; Kier Starmer has kept to his signature style of making vague statements that will alienate no one and garner him no support, a vapid statement about the importance of patriotism.
A quick point of order: England is not your country. The United Kingdom is. If people want to raise their countries flag and show patriotism they should use the right flag, that's like me saying I want to show British pride and then putting up a family crest, if you're going to be a small minded bigot at least get the flag right.
Likely little will come from this publicity stunt except demonisation of already persecuted minorities, increased fear and anxiety for those communities and more screen time for racists. If it wasn't August and Westminster wasn't on holiday Operation Raise The Colours probably would have got lost among the general day-to-day awfulness.
