HAVE you ironed your Union Jack yet? Best get on with it: it’s One Britain One Nation day today.

Schoolchildren around the country will be wearing red, white and blue, waving Union Jacks and singing a patriotic song, supported by their patriotic parents and teachers.

Due to an unfortunate oversight, it takes place on a day when Scottish schools have either already broken up for the summer or are finishing early (oops).

But that’s OK because the organisers say that this special “day of pride and unity” will help create a “spirit of inclusion”. The stand-out highlight is the patriotic anthem, which concludes with the refrain “strong Britain, great nation”.

Will the celebration bring traffic in the shires to a standstill? Unlikely. The incredulous reaction to the planned event, which has been endorsed by the UK Government, suggests the whole experiment could be confined to history by 5pm. The First Minister, like many of us, thought it was a spoof when she first read about it. Even a poll of Daily Express readers shows they are against the idea by a slight margin. On the organisers’ website too, the public messages are less than supportive.

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But it has more than just curiosity value. One Britain One Nation is another manifestation of showy patriotism, a habit we have imported from other, brasher countries like the United States. With the Union Jack now the default backdrop whenever Boris Johnson or Keir Starmer make a statement, and with the flag plastered all over supermarket products, there’s a growing sense that everyone has to pass the patriotism test. Are politicians patriotic enough? Is the BBC? And now: are schoolchildren? The British government’s promotion of this is misjudged, offputting and unBritish (and unScottish).

It’s important to make a distinction between the origins of the One Britain One Nation idea and the political exploitation of it. It began in Bradford, West Yorkshire, a multicultural city that has not always been united. The video footage on the organisers’ website shows a multi-ethnic group of Bradford primary school kids proudly belting out the song (when you consider the words were written by seven to 10-year-olds, they did a pretty good job). It’s easy to see the value of a “one nation” message in such a context. OBON says it wants to develop children’s self-esteem and ensure all children feel that “they belong in their families, their school and their communities”. There’s nothing at all wrong with that.

But the hyper-patriotic nature of the event has left it open to ridicule, and once the idea was latched onto by the British government, it became something else. It became plastic and insincere; it became an exercise in indoctrination. The very idea of ministers urging teachers to make schoolchildren chant about Britain’s greatness was only ever going to provoke derision. Ever wondered what Boris Johnson would look like with Kim Jong Un’s hair? Now we know, thanks to one clever meme doing the rounds yesterday (it’s an uncanny resemblance.)

It’s “incredibly important that schools take part”, declared the England and Wales education secretary on Wednesday.

Is it? Why on earth should they? This is a government that uses flags and patriotism for its own ends, to cement the loyalty of voters in former red wall seats, and in a cackhanded effort to counterbalance the threat of Scottish nationalism. Now it seems even kids aren’t safe from their manipulation.

But it can’t possibly work. Patriotism can’t be imposed; it has to be felt, from within. And even then, many of us would rather eat raw neeps than be seen in public singing slavishly patriotic songs. Last Night of the Proms? If you must. Football and rugby matches? Fine. Anywhere else? You must be joking.

As a child, I spent a year at school in America and remember having to join my classmates at a ceremony outside for the Fourth of July. The other eight-year-olds stood with their hands on their hearts singing the Star Spangled Banner while I walked off on my own. I was not a particularly defiant child but something about the experience made me recoil. Coming from Scotland, this sentimental patriotism was alien to me, and excluding.

Later, I remember feeling anything but pride in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain. I idealised Italy instead. As a young adult, I lived briefly in Italy and of course discovered that it was less than perfect, and – shock – that I even felt a hankering sometimes for Britain.

I vividly remember the surge of affection I felt, on returning, looking out from a bus at the London rain and all the badly dressed people walking about in it.

Does that amount to pride in being British? You could argue that; I would call it appreciation. And I don’t think I’m alone in that. I think many people feel quiet appreciation for certain things about Britain, or Scotland, but ask us to bray about how great we are, or stand up for the national anthem, and you’ll curdle that positivity and change it into something suspect and unsettling.

In Scotland, of course, there is just as much flag-waving and sentimentality about nationhood. Instead of “great” Britain, we have “plucky” Scotland. While First Minister in 2009, Alex Salmond sat on a stage with Sandi Thom and sang the most syrupy anthem of them all, Caledonia. Pride in Scotland was a hallmark of the Saltire-draped Yes campaign. Appealing to emotions is such a useful way of diverting attention away from thorny questions.

And the patriotism test applies here too: just asks Tunnocks. The company faced boycott calls from hyper-patriots just for calling their tea cake the Great British Tea Cake in a London marketing campaign.

It’s all so very, very silly. Meaningful national pride is not about the outward trappings. It’s about having something to be proud of.

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In a free country, we are at liberty to love our country, hate it, or both at the same time. In a truly free country we don’t have to apologise for our flagless gardens or hold back from mocking the idea of ministers making schoolchildren sing paeans of praise to the motherland. We can be as unpatriotic as we like.

And if you ask me, that’s about as British, or Scottish, as it gets.

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