Public power without public election
The head of state is not chosen by voters and cannot be removed by voters. A democratic country should be able to ask whether that is still acceptable.
British republican flag lab · open public project
Design a flag for a democratic Britain.
Use the Flag Lab to create, explain, and share a proposal for what Britain’s public symbol could become after monarchy. Submit a design proposal — not a final national flag. The strongest entries explain the idea behind the design.
£86.3m
Sovereign Grant, 2023–24.
38%
18–24s back an elected head of state. YouGov, Oct 2025.
0
Structural Welsh presence in the Union Flag.
New Republican Standard · N01Original proposal
Common Dawn
A new constitutional beginning rising over a civic horizon.
- Institutional navy
- Civic gold
- Civic off-white
new-republican-standardminimalconstitutionalfuture
Proposals on this site are editable starting points, not final flags. Some are original New Republican Standards; others are Union Interventions that critique the existing geometry.
§ Opening · The public archive
The public archive opens with the first moderated submissions.
0
Proposals filed
0
Public votes
0
This week
0
Editor's picks
Flag of the week
Flag of the Week
The first featured design will appear here once the gallery begins receiving submissions. Be the first to put a flag forward.
Start designingRecent proposals
Archive →The argument
Why is this conversation happening now?
Republicanism in Britain is no longer a theoretical argument. It sits inside live questions about public money, protest rights, national identity, devolution, class, public services, and who has the right to represent the country.
Young people are less attached to monarchy
YouGov's October 2025 tracker showed 18–24s split almost evenly — 40% wanted to keep the monarchy, 38% wanted an elected head of state — against 82% support for the monarchy among over-65s.
Protest at the coronation exposed the problem
Republic campaigners were arrested before a planned coronation protest in 2023. They were later released with no further action, and the Met expressed regret. For many republicans, the episode showed how monarchy and protest rights collide in public space.
Wales remains absent from the flag
The Union Flag combines older English, Scottish, and Irish symbols. Wales has no separate structural place in it.
The cost argument is not going away
The official Sovereign Grant is only part of the debate. Republican campaigners argue that security, estates, travel, local costs, and lost public revenue make the real cost much higher.
No serious alternative has entered public imagination
Britain has arguments about monarchy, but almost no serious public design process for what could replace its symbols.
§ The missing symbol
Britain has anti-monarchy politics. It does not yet have an anti-monarchy flag.
Many countries have flags that carry a republican memory: revolution, independence, constitutional rupture, democratic reform, or liberation. Britain does not. Anti-monarchy politics here has campaigns, arguments, and protests — but no widely recognised symbol that can gather people around a shared democratic future.
The Union Flag is already claimed by the state, monarchy, military, sport, nostalgia, empire, protest, pop culture, and the far right. It means too many things at once, and none of them clearly say: public power should belong to the people. A movement needs a symbol people can carry, draw, wear, remix, and recognise.
“A republic is not just a different head of state. It is a different answer to the question: where does power come from?”
Read the full structural argument in the ManifestoWork on this site is organised around three families: New Republican Standards (original proposals), Union Interventions (critiques of the existing flag), and Movement References (research, never to be copied).
§ New Republican Standards
Original proposals, not Union recolours
A British republican flag does not have to begin with the Union Flag. These are original abstract proposals — simple enough to draw from memory, serious enough to fly outside a town hall, and editable in the Flag Lab.
New Republican StandardEditable
Common Dawn
What does a new constitutional beginning look like?
Deep navy with a large off-centre gold disc rising over a thin civic horizon — public power rising from below.
Use this templateNew Republican StandardEditable
People's Assembly
What if the country gathered as equals?
An open red ring with four equal marks around it — public assembly, equal voices, a circle no one chairs.
Use this templateNew Republican StandardEditable
Red Field / Open Circle
What if labour history opened, not closed, around the public?
A strong red field with an open ring left of centre: collective power that holds a space for public participation rather than a single emblem.
Use this templateNew Republican StandardEditable
The Commons
Who owns land, housing, and shared life?
A horizontal path of common ground crosses a green field. A small gold mark at the meeting point names public value.
Use this templateNew Republican StandardEditable
Civic Star
What if direction came from public life, not inheritance?
A single eight-point star toward the hoist: navigation, equal citizenship, a future being aimed at.
Use this templateNew Republican StandardEditable
Wales First
What if the redesign began by correcting an absence?
Green and off-white treated as structural rather than decorative — a British republican flag that starts with Wales.
Use this templateNew Republican StandardEditable
The Ballot Sun
Where should legitimacy come from?
A simplified ballot box under a rising disc: democracy as the source of authority, not birth.
Use this templateNew Republican StandardEditable
Post-Monarchy Standard
What fills the space a crown leaves behind?
Two red bars frame a deliberately empty centre: the room left by inherited power becomes public space.
Use this templateNew Republican StandardEditable
River Republic
What does an island owe to the people who move through it?
A single white wave across a blue-green field: shared waterways, migration, climate, movement.
Use this templateNew Republican StandardEditable
Social Rights Banner
What rights would a republic publicly carry?
Four clean bands carry suffrage memory, labour, land, and equality — a republican flag that names its social commitments.
Use this template§ The brief
What would an anti-monarchy flag need to do?
A working brief for any serious proposal. Not a checklist — a set of pressures the design has to survive.
Requirement · 01
Reject inherited power without becoming only a protest sign.
Requirement · 02
Represent work, care, public services, and common life.
Requirement · 03
Include Wales and the nations without hierarchy.
Requirement · 04
Feel serious enough for a town hall and strong enough for a demonstration.
Requirement · 05
Work online, on paper, on a flagpole, and on a badge.
Requirement · 06
Carry social justice without becoming party branding.
§ 10 · Design briefs
Start from a design brief
The full set lives on the Ideas page — pick one and the Flag Lab opens with the brief already loaded.
Brief № 01
Use this brief Design an original flag that does not use Union Flag geometry.
Brief № 02
Use this brief Design a flag that gives Wales equal visual weight.
Brief № 03
Use this brief Design a flag that makes work visible.
Put an idea into the archive
A flag is a public symbol. It deserves public imagination.
Create a proposal, explain the thinking, and let the public test whether it has the clarity, dignity, and force to become a serious contender.