Transport Secretary Grant Shapps claimed the removal of the EU flag from licences and plates was a 'historic moment' BORIS Johnson’s Tory Government has been warned that plans to put the Union flag on all new car number plates in the UK will undermine plans to hold the home nations together. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps claimed that putting the Union flag on cars’ plates was a “historic moment for British motorists and a reassertion of our independence from the EU”. However the SNP’s constitutional spokesperson Tommy Sheppard said it showed the “UK Government descending into right-wing, flag-waving British nationalism”.