Ah, the Union flag. Symbol of Great Britain and all things British.

The Queen, The Beatles, a cup of tea, and of course, the Mini.

Except the Mini isn’t British any more is it, and I think its time parent BMW stopped all this nonsense about being a British brand. Mini, or MINI as I should say, is now a product of the world.

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Proud to fly the flag-the German developed, Austrian built Countryman

BMW’s stewardship of the MINI name has been a massive success for the company with an expanding range of cars including the Austrian built Countryman, with the Roadster and Coupe due for launch by 2012, heck they’re even putting the name on scooters now. All of which is fine by me, good luck to them I say.

The MINI hatch has always delivered a superb drivining experience, and as long as Cowley, sorry, Plant Oxford continues to be kept at capacity churning cars out, I’ll not complain. However, the use of the Union Jack on a car owned by a German company, with its design offices in Germany, with some cars built in Austria seems a tad pointless.

I think an EU flag wing mirrors would be more appropriate.

Thing is, in my opinion, the whole MINI brand currently feels like a foreigner’s perception of what being British is.

Clearly BMW aim to continue the expansion of the MINI name and judging from the reaction I saw at my local MINI dealer this past weekend, Countryman will be a huge success. However if BMW intend to continue to play upon MINI’s Brit heritage, it has to get some more UK-centric design in place and bring the marque home.

Without some British design or engineering involvement it is crass to market the brand as British regardless of its heritage.

MINI has successfully become its own entity, without the need for the cliched nonsense about the Swinging 60s and Cool Britannia. It’s customers love the image BMW have created, which in 2010 has nothing to do with the the 4ft box Alec Issigonis created. That’s fine, things move on and times change.

However, if you’re not going to design, develop and build them in Britain then drop the Union Jack, there’s really no place for it any longer.