The Butcher’s Apron Never Washes Clean: Raise the Colours, Hide the Stains

Ah, the Union Jack: bold, beautiful, benevolent — and, according to the less appreciative, nothing more than a butcher’s apron. How unfair! How slanderous! To mistake those charming stripes of red for blood, when in fact they merely commemorate the Empire’s tireless efforts to civilise the planet.

For what did Britannia bring, if not light to the darkness, tea to the tropics, and railways to the ungrateful? It was never conquest, heavens no — only the world’s longest charity mission. The muskets and Maxim guns were merely the wrapping paper around the gift of civilisation, the cannon-fire no more than the cheerful fanfare heralding peace and order.

Of course, there were misunderstandings. Entire nations, in their naïveté, failed to appreciate the gentle embrace of empire. They mistook occupation for intrusion, theft for trade, and massacre for the occasional disciplinary tap on the wrist. How unreasonable of them! Imagine rebelling against the Union Jack, that patchwork of divine benevolence — it is almost as if people prefer to govern themselves rather than be governed by gentlemen thousands of miles away who had never seen their lands, their languages, or their lives as anything other than colourful curiosities.

And yes, from time to time, a regrettable necessity arose: whole populations needed to be introduced to British justice, which, being efficient, tended to arrive in volleys. What better way to explain civilisation than to scatter it from Gatling guns? It was all done reluctantly, of course, with a heavy heart — though, somehow, always with a light hand on the trigger.

Take India, for instance. Delhi, 1857 — a regrettable misunderstanding settled by slaughter. Amritsar, 1919 — not a massacre, surely, but merely “crowd control” with Lee-Enfields. Over in Africa, 1879, the Zulus too required a fiery lesson in stability, entire communities disciplined by bullet and torch. Ireland, never quite grateful, witnessed Croke Park in 1920, where a day of sport was generously upgraded into live target practice. And Asia, ever unruly, saw Batang Kali in 1948 — a mere misunderstanding that left villages emptied and “order” restored.

Still, the Empire soldiered on with infinite patience, wiping its brow with its bloodied apron and sighing at the thanklessness of it all. And when, at last, Britain withdrew, it wasn’t a retreat — oh no. It was merely the Empire deciding it had done enough babysitting, and now the children could squabble among themselves. Having taught the globe all it needed to know — cricket, punctuality, and the correct temperature of tea — Britain graciously returned home to help Europe, that famously peaceful and well-organised continent, find harmony.

So yes, call it the butcher’s apron if you must. But let us be clear: the stains are not blood, they are civilisation, smeared thickly and generously across the map. And if it looks a little redder than expected, well — progress is a messy business.

And now, in the present day, how heart-warming to see that grand old apron still paraded by patriots of vision — under the stirring banner of “Raise the Colours”, a noble crusade backed by that philosopher-king of Luton, Tommy Robinson, and the dazzling intellects of Paul Golding of Britain First. Truly, nothing honours the memory of Delhi, Amritsar, Croke Park, Batang Kali, and countless other triumphs quite like re-draping the butcher’s apron and pretending the stains are something other than what they are. Progress, it seems, never goes out of fashion.