EXCLUSIVE: Nigel Farage vows to make St George's Day a Bank Holiday
WORKERS in England and Wales would get an extra bank holiday to celebrate their national saints’ days, under an election pledge unveiled today by Nigel Farage.
He told the Daily Express it was unfair the English and Welsh did not celebrate their national culture as the Northern Irish and Scottish do.
The UK Independence Party wants England to have a new public holiday on April 23, St George’s Day, or the next Monday if it fell on a weekend.
In Wales, March 1 would be a new day off for the country to honour St David.
Mr Farage declared: “Surely it’s only fair for us to have a day off to celebrate our own patron saints too?
England has been denigrated to such a point that English culture isn’t celebrated in the same way as the national cultures of Scotland and Ireland are.
“We’d like to see St George’s Day and St David’s Day become national days of celebration, both in recognition of the significance of the countries, and to boost consumer spending and tourism, which will make up for money lost from people having the day off.
“Ukip believes in Britain, and we celebrate Britishness.
“Let’s all of us in the UK fly our flags with pride.”
St Patrick’s Day on March 17 is already a public holiday in Ireland and Northern Ireland.
In Scotland, St Andrew’s Day on November 30 was designated a “voluntary public holiday” by the Edinburgh Parliament in 2006.
Surely it’s only fair for us to have a day off to celebrate our own patron saints too? England has been denigrated to such a point that English culture isn’t celebrated in the same way as the national cultures of Scotland and Ireland are.
Private sector firms do not have to offer it, company staff have to use a day’s annual leave to take the day off and banks do not close.
However, Scottish civil servants get paid time off, schools and other local services may shut if councils decide they should, and special events are staged across the country.
Three years ago, when Britain got an extra day off to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, an economics think tank calculated that every Bank Holiday cost the economy £2.3billion.
But the Government estimated a much lower potential loss and said there could even be a £1billion gain thanks to enhanced takings in the leisure, hospitality and retail sectors.
Ukip says England and Wales have fewer Bank Holidays than anywhere else in Europe and calculated that any loss would be offset by the boost to tourism and retail.
In 2013 a survey for the British Future think tank specialising in identity and integration found only 40 per cent knew St George’s Day was on April 23.
It speculated the English were too “nervous” to mark it, not least because of the association that had grown up between the English flag and racism, and fears of upsetting ethnic minorities.
St George was a Turkish-born Roman soldier who became venerated as a Christian martyr across Europe and the Middle East because he submitted to execution in 303AD rather than obey a Roman emperor’s order to renounce his faith.
Mythology recounts that he killed a dragon.
