The Bishop of Blackburn has defended Brexit backers saying they were driven by pride in their nation rather than xenophobia. Bishop Philip North said the decision to leave, which was taken by every single borough in his Lancashire diocese in the 2016 referendum, was not informed by anger or racism as some remain backers claimed.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Daily Express, he called for politicians and the Church of England to help restore national pride and argued Britons must “reclaim some of their symbols” without embarrassment. Bishop North said: “At the time of the debate, I remember a lot of criticism particularly coming from Church circles of those who voted for Brexit giving false motives for that vote. Some were saying it was simply a xenophobic racist vote, others saying it was a protest vote, an angry vote.”

But working in Lancashire, where some areas saw up to 70% vote for Brexit, he said he felt a duty to understand why people had voted in the way they did, and added that in those conversations he had not seen an “angry vote, and certainly not a kind of racist vote.”

He observed: “What I saw was actually people voting for a particular vision of nation. They saw that, as they understood it, national identity had been eroded over a number of years by a kind of globalist EU project, by other pressures and forces.” The Bishop said many felt they had to apologise for being English and explain their national identity. “I saw pride in nation in that vote and people standing up for a vision of nation and a particular vision of sovereignty that I felt needed listening to and honouring,” he said.

Asked whether enough has been done to build a sense of pride in nation since Brexit, Bishop North said: “No, I think I see almost the same division now. I see it lived out and played out in different ways. But I still see many people who feel embarrassed to speak about pride in nationhood, pride in the Royal Family and in the Armed Forces, as if that is somehow a language of the past.”

He added: “So I think we still have a really important national conversation about what it means to be British in such a complex global backdrop.” Bishop North urged leaders in the Church and in Westminster to do their bit to restore national pride as he called for Britons to have the courage to “reclaim” national symbols.

He urged people not to be ashamed of “some of the traditions around Britishness and Englishness, and for that not to be a source of embarrassment anymore.” He argued: “I think people do have a right to a debate about the makeup of their nation. And I think we can’t underestimate the extent to which the immigration debate has played into this. Not people simply wanting to oppose immigration, but I think people quite rightly wanting some say about the look and makeup and the feel of the communities of which they’re a part.”

However, the Bishop warned against isolationism, saying: “We’re already an incredibly complex globe where we have a rogue American government, a wholly unpredictable American government and we have a changing world order. We can’t go isolationist.”

He said: “We need to find a balance where we’re proud of nationhood but are not isolationist. We must have strong alliances with Europeans and with other colleagues, for the sake of global security.” The Bishop addressed the raising of Union flags across the country, saying people should examine their motives for displaying them. He urged people to examine whether they where putting up flags “because [they’re] angry, or are you putting this up because you’re proud of your nation and what it stands for and its history of standing up for peace and for justice globally?”

The country has seen a wave of flag raising as part of the ‘Raise the Colours’ campaign, which sees locals flyposting flags across street furniture such as lampposts. The Bishop suggested that the debate around raising flags was divisive, but said that for many doing it they “see a recovered pride in the nation and are glad that flags are flying over their communities.”

On healing post-Brexit divisions, Bishop North exposed a complex dynamic within the Church of England itself. “The interesting thing about the church is we have a leadership that mostly Remain, and a membership that is mostly Brexit,” he said. “There was post-Brexit analysis on the nation of somewhere and anywhere. We have an ‘anywhere’ leadership and the communities that we serve are a ‘somewhere’ membership.”

He said this creates “an interesting environment, as we can start conversations within congregations and then within the communities that we serve.” The Bishop added that he was worried about growing division in the country and a more angry politics, saying: “We’ve got to start talking to each other. We’ve got to start understanding each other, we’ve got to start together building a vision of what it means to be British.”

He said the Church’s unique position – with a priest deployed to every community – enables it to hear both sides. “We’re present in those multicultural communities where the flag is the thing of fear and we’re present in those white majority estates in which a flag is a thing of pride,” he explained. The Bishop’s intervention comes as Britain continues to grapple with questions of national identity nearly a decade after the Brexit referendum.