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.
FutureFlag · public design lab · est. 2025
Design the symbol after monarchy.
Britain has a monarchy problem. It also has a symbol problem. FutureFlag is an open public lab for the standard that might come next — a flag strong enough for a town hall, a march, a badge, and a hostile newspaper column.
£86.3m
Sovereign Grant, 2023–24.
38%
18–24s back an elected head of state. YouGov, Oct 2025.
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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.
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Proposals filed
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This week
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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.
Standard N01 · New Republican StandardEditable
Severed Saltire
Four red diagonal arms drive in from the corners but never meet. The Union's saltire is structurally undone, each cut end cauterised gold.
Rooted in: Scotland's Saltire of St Andrew and the Union's diagonal geometry, broken on purpose. A union by consent, not inheritance.
Use this templateStandard N02 · New Republican StandardEditable
Common Dawn
A civic-gold sun rises off-centre over a thin cream horizon. Public power coming up from below, a new constitutional morning.
Rooted in: The Sun of May (Argentina, Uruguay) and the rising-sun motif of republics. Legitimacy that dawns from the people.
Use this templateStandard N03 · New Republican StandardEditable
Tricolour of the Commons
Vertical green, cream and red, with a black hoist canton carrying one gold star. Wales placed first, not last; the republic named in the corner.
Rooted in: The French Tricolore and Irish tricolour, with green for Wales. Plural nations, internationalist, post-monarchy.
Use this templateStandard N04 · New Republican StandardEditable
The Red Wedge
A red triangle drives from the hoist deep into a black field, a thin cream line trailing its point. Force entering, the old order giving way.
Rooted in: El Lissitzky's constructivist agitprop and the hoist-triangle of Cuba, the Philippines, Czechia. Revolutionary momentum.
Use this templateStandard N05 · New Republican StandardEditable
Star of the Commons
One bold gold star toward the hoist on a deep red field. A single people, a single source of authority, no crown above it.
Rooted in: The lone liberation star — Ghana's Black Star, Cuba's and Chile's solitary stars. Unity and self-rule.
Use this templateStandard N06 · New Republican StandardEditable
Suffrage Standard
Purple, white and green bands behind an open gold ring. Enfranchisement carried into the republic, the vote as the centre that stays open.
Rooted in: The WSPU suffragette tricolour (purple/white/green), a real British democratic palette. The franchise won, and widened.
Use this templateStandard N07 · New Republican StandardEditable
Wales First
The Welsh green-over-white field, structured by a red hoist bar and a gold disc on the seam. The redesign begins by correcting an absence.
Rooted in: Y Ddraig Goch, the Welsh flag's green-and-white field. The nation the Union Flag never structurally included, placed at the start.
Use this templateStandard N08 · New Republican StandardEditable
The Open Circle
A thick cream ring, off-centre toward the hoist, holding open a space on a red field. The seat of power left deliberately empty, kept public.
Rooted in: The heraldic annulet and the solar disc, inverted into an open ring. Power held open, the empty throne as a feature.
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.