The Isle of Dogs in east London has its own vibe, distinct from other areas nearby. It is known locally as “the island”, but really it is a peninsula surrounded by a U-bend in the Thames. Its shape is prominent on the map in the opening credits of EastEnders, the BBC soap-opera.
The Isle of Dogs may not be a real island, but it could be argued there is a bit of an island mentality among its long-term residents. They like to do things their own way.
That became clear this week when the area cropped up in the latest round of the culture wars roiling Britain. This time the tension was over flags.
The north of the island is dominated by the financial power base of Canary Wharf. But to the south lies Millwall, a tight-knit community that still includes plenty of old-school eastenders. Many reside in the sort of two-up, two-down houses that were once a staple of London living, but now increasingly lie in the shadows of encroaching high-rise towers.
Friedrich Merz’s first 100 days in office: Furious allies and disastrous polls
Germany’s Israel pivot is raising fears among Jewish residents
Calls grow louder for Europe to deploy its ‘Big Bazooka’ in tariff negotiations
Palestinians say Occupied Territories Bill would give them hope: ‘We are really in a big cage’
The Isle of Dogs is also at the heart of a residential redevelopment boom that threatens to price out many locals. Gentrification is a real fear for some in the area as the South Poplar building master plan is rolled out. This has caused some resentment.
The island is part of the London borough of Tower Hamlets, which stretches eastward from the Whitechapel and Aldgate areas around Brick Lane, which is known the world over for its curries. The wider borough has the biggest proportion of Muslims of any area in Britain, at up to 40 per cent. Bangladeshis outnumber white British in census data.
On the island, however, there are more whites and fewer south Asians compared to the rest of the borough, which includes Muslim hotspots such as Bethnal Green. Millwall has less than half the percentage of Bangladeshis as the rest of Tower Hamlets.
Millwall was also where the hard-right British National Party (BNP) got its first councillor elected, in 1993. These days the local area is represented by the only Conservative on Tower Hamlets council, which is led by the Aspire Party, a local outfit dominated by men of south Asian heritage and built around a single personality, mayor Lutfur Rahman.
This week it was widely reported in Britain that locals in Tower Hamlets had taken to the streets overnight to festoon hundreds of lamp-posts with Union Jacks and flags of St George.
What was less widely reported was the flag bonanza was mostly confined to the Isle of Dogs, the whitest part of the most Muslim part of Britain.
The flag crusade was part of a growing online campaign among right-wing activists to “raise the colours” in an apparent show of British and English patriotism.
However, many of those pushing the campaign on social media also seem to be the same right-wing activists who are deeply angry at the levels of immigration in Britain.
The flag campaign began in Birmingham, a midlands city that also has huge numbers of south Asian Muslim immigrants alongside working-class whites.
Birmingham and Tower Hamlets councils both said they would cut down the unauthorised Union Jack and St George flags on council lamp-posts, leading to an outcry from the political right that they were biased against shows of Britishness.
“This absurd national self-loathing must end,” said Robert Jenrick, the shadow UK justice secretary, who is also an immigration hardliner and a contender to replace Kemi Badenoch as leader of the Conservative Party.
Most of the flags erected on the Isle of Dogs were in the area around Manchester Road, which runs south towards Millwall from the Blue Bridge connecting the island to the rest of Tower Hamlets. By the time I got there at lunchtime on Monday, the council had made good on its promise and most flags had been removed.
There were just a few flags of St George left fluttering on poles near the bridge. Social media, meanwhile, was full of clips of angry right-wing activists remonstrating with council workers who were cutting down the flags.
Mayor Rahman was particularly criticised because for months after the October 7th, 2023, attacks in Israel, Tower Hamlets council had allowed – and many of its councillors had actively encouraged – the flying of Palestinian flags from council lamp-posts.
Only last year, and under outside pressure, did Rahman reluctantly order the Palestinian flags to be removed. The order to take down the British flags, however, came hours after they were erected.
The apparent discrepancy in approach this week fuelled a victim narrative propagated by right-wing activists who allege a “two-tier” system is emerging in the UK that puts white Brits to the back of the queue.
That argument might find favour in places such as Millwall, but it is less likely to fly in Tower Hamlets town hall, which sits directly across the street from the ethnic cacophony of Whitechapel Road market and just up the road from the sprawling East London Mosque.
