By Bruce Newsome
January 4, 2026
Beautiful fireworks over the river. LONDON’S New Year fireworks bathed the capital in foreign flags, EU nostalgia, and ‘togetherness’ – while Britain’s own colours were conspicuously sidelined.
There was plenty of Hamas green, Palestinian green, red and white, and the European Union’s blue and yellow. Flags from around the world but Israel’s erased. Most significantly no British red, white, and blue.
When red, white, and blue colours were projected on to the Houses of Parliament, they were vertical, and in the French order: blue, white, red. While fireworks burst green, red, and white in the sky, lights along the Embankment splashed the same on the river.
At one point, the London Eye was lit in EU colours. Remember, we’re welcoming 2026, ten years since the Brexit referendum. Is London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan unable to get over a popular vote that went against him ten years ago? Back then, Khan pushed for a second referendum. Since then, he has never embraced the Labour Party’s nominal commitment to respect the vote.
I suspect Khan’s administration is signalling hope for rejoin. Certainly Sir Keir Starmer’s government gives him hope. Starmer has already re-surrendered fisheries and is signalling a rejoin of the customs union (which would inevitably lead to full membership, on the argument that membership would give Britain a say).
While I was pondering this, the jumbotron showed national flags from around the globe coming together to form a Union Jack. So now we are moving from Britain subsumed to the EU, to Britain subsumed to the rest of the world – or at least the woke’s favourite cultures.
The accompanying music, Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance, was a calculated travesty to reposition our patriotic, indeed imperial anthem for Khan’s globalist paean, the voiceover signalling a Britain defined by everything except Englishness.
It started by quoting supposed popular answers to the prompt: ‘What England means’.
· And you think you’re seeing flags now? Wait until the World Cup’s on. Then you’ll know about flags, my son.
· Here’s what England means to me – the real England.
· When it’s sunny, it’s too hot. When it’s cold, the weather’s rubbish.
· England, to me, is a cup of tea. How many sugars? I’m sweet enough.
· England, to me, is Caribbean barbers with the sharpest trim. It’s Christian neighbours saying Happy Hanukkah, mate, and Muslim mums saying Merry Christmas, love.
· Because this is what England means to me. It’s about loving each other no matter what colour you are, where you’re from, or who your God is. Because this is England. This is the United Kingdom.
The only time in the sequence that the England flag wasprojected was to celebrate the England Lionesses’ victory in UEFA, and supposedly England’s victory in the women’s rugby world cup. The English flag is acceptable only when commandeered for the wokeland as a celebration of gendered sport. When the winners are female, of course.
How much value can be attached to the England flag as it was included on the night alongside product placements for the woke movie of the year, Wicked: Be Good, which typically for today turns the Wicked Witch of the West into the heroine?
Khan himself spun the event as ‘the greatest in the world’, virtue signalling its duplicitous themes of togetherness and diversity. ‘We spent a lot of time and effort curating our New Year’s Eve celebrations – the theme is togetherness. I think diversity is a strength not a weakness . . . I think you can be a proud Londoner but also someone whose country of origin is somewhere across the globe.’
He dodged diversity’s proven dangers illustrated so graphically by the closure of Primrose Hill, a wonderful place from which to watch the fireworks until one teenager stabbed another to death there as 2023 was giving way to 2024.
Khan complacently claims that London’s violent crime has fallen since then and that the Met has hired more police, notwithstanding the unpoliced crime and disorder that Londoners experience daily. And the reality that police are too busy reviewing our social media and protecting pro-Hamas marchers to be spared to secure Primrose Hill or prevent knife attacks elsewhere.
Nor did Khan draw attention to the shocking cost (£45) of tickets to enter the packed stands known as the ‘green zone’ behind the London Eye, and the price (£22) of a burger, while waiting 90 minutes between last admission and midnight.
Until 2014, the event was free. Until 2020, public transport on the night was free. Now it’s an expensive, elitist celebration of economic equality and inclusiveness.
The audience exposed to Khan’s political propaganda spinfest was estimated at 100,000 on the river, but millions more via television.
Roll on 2029 and the hope of a national government for once that will organise a genuinely British New Year celebration in our capital city. And roll on a change in the law that stops any Mayor from serving for more than two four-year terms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg3PIdlKzj8
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/londons-2026-show-celebrates-everything-but-englishness/