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Speculation on the fate of the United Kingdom flag after separation of Scotland

Background

Background

With the impending referendum on independence by the people of Scotland, much speculation has erupted about what might happen to the union jack - should Scotland separate, will it be retained by the remainder of the United Kingdom (or England and Wales, etc.), or will a new flag be developed? Below are some of the speculations that have been aired in various locations.

BBC News Magazine - 11 proposals suggested by members of the Flag Institute and others
Marc Pasquin's suggestions - the first simply combines all crosses into a single 8 pointed cross fimbriated white on blue, the second invokes the idea of three peoples joining (Irish, English and Welsh) and the last goes a bit further by having the crosses look like some sort of star. The first in my mind would be the simplest and probably easier to sell.
Revised union jack by Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg
BBC News Magazine - 25 more designs submitted by BBC News Magazine readers
Proposal by John Yates at 2008 Eisteddfod
Proposal by Ian Lucas, MP Wrexham
Proposal by YouTube user BRAINSMASHERMAN
Proposals by YouTube user DeltaNC
Some suggestions by the Daily Mail
Published in the Belfast Telegraph
Belfast Telegraph - readers' suggestions
Proposal by Liam Roberts
Proposals from the Britology Watch blog
Atelier Works proposals

Revised union jack

image by Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 5 December 2013

Rather than an octocross, as in Marc Pasquin's first suggestion, I'd expect the Saints Andrew's and Patrick's crosses to merge into a single Saint Patrick's cross, red fimbriated white, but not merged with the Saint George's cross. Indeed, the blue would need some reinterpretation, probably the sea around the British Islands.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 5 December 2013

Proposal by John Yates

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 8 December 2013

Proposal #3 [at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25205017] is actually quite old now - it was revealed to the public in July 2008 at the International Eisteddfod, annual folk festival which takes place in Llangollen, Wales: http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/local-news/welsh-influenced-union-flag-launched-llangollen-2826246. While the article no longer displays the original image, it can still be found here: http://www.flagsforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=16#p631.

The 2008-2009 discussions about incorporating Welsh charges into the Union Jack have actually produced quite a number of designs, ranging from quite serious to completely ridiculous.
Tomislav Todorovic, 8 December 2013

This flag design was proposed by John Yates, from Milton Keynes, England, in July 2008 at the International Eisteddfod, annual folk festival which takes place in Llangollen, Wales. Mr Yates claimed to have gotten the inspiration for his design at the 2006 International Eisteddfod after having seen the St David’s flags being sold, which gave him the idea to use this design instead of that of the official Welsh flag. The flag design introduced a gyronny partition of the field, four of the gyrons displaying the saltires of St Andrew and St Patrick, as used currently, while other four combined the crosses of St George and St David in the same manner. In the first quarter, cross of St George was placed closer to the hoist, thus being given the precedence over that of St David in the same way the saltire of St Andrew precedes that of St Patrick.

Sources:
[1] Daily post website - report on John Yates' proposal: http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/local-news/welsh-influenced-union-flag-launched-llangollen-2826246
[2] Report on John Yates' proposal: at Flags Forum: http://www.flagsforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=16#p631
Tomislav Todorovic, 8 December 2013

Proposal by Ian Lucas

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 8 December 2013

On 2007-11-27, Ian Lucas, Labour MP from Wrexham, Wales, stated in a House of Commons debate that the Union Jack's design lacks symbols representing Wales and proposed that it be amended with the Red Dragon of Wales. He also presented a picture of the proposed design. The proposal met mixed reactions and also initiated a number of online discussions, which lasted well into the year 2009 and resulted with a number of designs for a changed flag, ranging from serious to ridiculous. While some tried to incorporate the dragon into the design, some repainted parts of the field into green from the Welsh flag and some used the flag of St David instead. A number of designs also employed lighter shade of blue as is currently used in the flag of Scotland. While the discussions were generally ended during 2009, A number of the designs is still presented online.

Sources:
[1] BBC News website - report on Ian Lucas' proposal: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7114248.stm
[2] Daily Telegraph website - reactions to Ian Lucas' proposal: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1570998/Japan-offers-to-solve-Union-Jack-problem.html
[3] Daily Telegraph website - more reactions to Ian Lucas' proposal: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1572168/The-new-face-of-Britain-Flag-poll-results.html
[4] Daily Telegraph website - gallery of readers' designs: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1570596/Readers-flag-designs.html
[5] Scanned photo of Ian Lucas showing the picture of his proposal (from Wrexham Weekly Leader, issue of 2007-12-14):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vertigogen/2113118448/in/set-1182189/

Tomislav Todorovic, 8 December 2013

Proposal by YouTube user BRAINSMASHERMAN

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 9 December 2013

A YouTube user who went under the user name BRAINSMASHERMAN has published a clip (link broken since late 2009): youtube.com/watch?v=c5vWzN3Qa2U which was showing his proposal for the redesign of Union Jack on a series of photos, some of which might have been showing a real flag, although the possibility of a heavy editing should not be excluded. In this design, bottom half of the field was green, as in the flag of Wales, while the top half was in a lighter shade of blue, as used in the flag of Scotland.
Tomislav Todorovic, 9 December 2013

Proposals by YouTube user DeltaNC

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 9 December 2013

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 9 December 2013

At about the same time as the above proposal by YouTube user BRAINSMASHERMAN, another YouTube user, who went under the user name DeltaNC, has published a clip (link broken since late 2009): youtube.com/watch?v=aMr9aNte1xg which showed a sequence of the Union jack redesigns. The first of these was very similar with that by the YouTube user BRAINSMASHERMAN (see above), but employed the dark shade of blue as is currently used. However, the author stated that unlike the current design, this proposal cannot be used as a distress signal when hoisted upside down. The solution to this problem was the second proposal, in which only the field parts along the hoist edge were green, which also might have been explained as the geographical representation of Wales. In order to make that design more symmetrical, a third proposal was presented, on which the field parts along both hoist and fly edges were made green - an idea not unlike the counterchanging of the saltires of St Andrew and St Patrick. Up to this point, the clip looked completely serious, but then followed the statement that something completely different can always be introduced, followed by the image of Union Jack with field repainted into yellow and saltire of St Patrick repainted into light blue, followed by the words "CRUNCHY NUTS!", which unfortunately took away much of the seriousness of whole presentation.
Tomislav Todorovic, 9 December 2013

Proposal by Liam Roberts

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 23 December 2013

This design, created by a person whose name seems to be the only known thing about him, was rather popular during the discussions about the inclusion of a Welsh emblem into the Union Jack, having appeared on numerous Web pages. Since then, most of its images were removed from the Web, although it is still shown at several flag-related blogs, like here: http://samsflags.blogspot.com/2013/03/happy-st-david-day.html and here: http://britologywatch.wordpress.com/2007/12/10/flying-the-flag-union-or-nation. Its image from the Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:New_Union_Flag_proposal_by_Liam_Roberts.png was shown at the Wikipedia page about the UK flag for some time as the illustration of the flag change discussions, but is currently shown only at the page about the Welsh flag, version in Galician: http://gl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandeira_de_Gales.

IIt re-introduces the pre-1801 Union Jack design, impaled so as to display the emblems of St George and St Andrew in the hoist half and those of St David and St Patrick in the fly half.
Tomislav Todorovic, 23 December 2013

Proposals from the Britology Watch blog

Shortly after Ian Lucas presented his proposal, a discussion about the use of flags of the United Kingdom and its constituent countries was published at the Britology Watch blog on 2007-12-10. In author's opinion, a possible solution for most of the problems would be introduction of "localized" versions of the flag, each of which would add one of the constituent countries' flags to the canton of the Union Jack. These flags would not replace the current flag completely, but could be freely used throughout the United Kingdom when convenient, none of them being restricted to a particular country. The canton would be defined as the area delimited by the top and hoist arms of the cross of St George. In case of Northern Ireland, the author proposed two possible solutions for the canton, either the Red Hand Flag or the flag of St Patrick.

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 23 December 2013

"Localized" flag for England; image derived from the Wikipedia image of Union Jack.

images by Tomislav Todorovic, 23 December 2013

"Localized" flag for Northern Ireland, version with the Red Hand Flag, and version with the flag of St Patrick.

images by Tomislav Todorovic, 23 December 2013

"Localized" flag for Scotland

images by Tomislav Todorovic, 23 December 2013

"Localized" flag for Wales

While no images of these flags are shown at the blog, their images presented here have the ratio 3:5, which was chosen because the flags in the canton, especially those charged with the saltires, might look too oblong, even distorted, on the flags with the ratio 1:2.
Tomislav Todorovic, 23 December 2013

Brian Cham proposal

image by Brian Cham and Tomislav Todorovic, 3 February 2017

During the discussions about the inclusion of a Welsh emblem into the Union Jack, a proposal which uses the cross of St David was published in 2009 by Brian Cham of Auckland, New Zealand in 2009 at this site (no longer online):
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1516432/UK.html and is currently available here:
https://briancham1994.wordpress.com/2017/01/23/proposed-flag-of-the-united-kingdom/

In this design, two crosses are counterchanged: that of St George is in first and fourth cantons and that of St David is in second and third ones, its black border being half as wide as white border of the other cross, with a narrower white outer border remaining. Both saltires are given equal width, the field parts next to the one of St Patrick being changed into white, while the remaining blue ones are in the same shade as used in the flag of Scotland. The shades of red, blue and gold are defined as Pantone colors 186 C, 300 C and 116 C, respectively. Lastly, the ratio is 2:3. The construction sheet is presented below:

image by Brian Cham and Tomislav Todorovic, 3 February 2017

Atelier Works proposals

Yesterday's Süddeutsche Zeitung [1] reported on a couple of designs by a design company "Atelier Works". The ones shown in the article (removing the blue from UJ; tudor rose on white; three red lions on white) are somewhat okay, others shown on the website [2] are ... well ... erm ...

Sources:
[1] Süddeutsche Zeitung 5 Sep 2014, p. 10 (at least now not available online)
[2] http://www.atelierworks.co.uk/blog/what-the-fuk.php
M. Schmöger, 6 September 2014

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