Unless you have been living under a rock for the last couple of weeks, you will have seen many in media and politics donning a red poppy in a professed expression of remembrance of the British military dead since the First World War.
The likes of Farage and the Daily Mail have disparaged immigrants and others who have chosen not to wear the poppy as being unappreciative of British sacrifices, as if immigrants paying taxes and contributing to Britain’s vital services should be made to prove further their loyalty to this island. The poppy has become yet another front in the culture war waged by the right and the far right.
Last year, then-Home Secretary Suella Braverman even used the Cenotaph as a rallying point in an attempt to disrupt a pro-Palestine march, arguing it was disrespectful to march for a ceasefire on a day made infamous by a ceasefire. A mob of fascists attempted violently to stop the march, which nonetheless, went ahead as planned.
The red poppy, as a symbol, and the events around Remembrance, have become ways to glorify war. Wars are portrayed as something always worth fighting, and prime ministers who send servicemen and women into unnecessary, cruel and amoral military interventions aren’t condemned but invited to the Cenotaph for Remembrance Sunday.
What is being ignored is the origin of the poppy. The red poppy was used first to support veterans of the First World War in 1921; a symbol of peace and hope for a traumatised nation in the aftermath of ‘the war to end all wars’; a conflict that resulted in the deaths of 750,000 from Britain.
Some argue that the poppy should be worn to remember the sacrifices made in the name of freedom, democracy and other liberal values, but the commemorations over 100 years later are now brimming with military nationalism.
The First World War was a war resulting in the deaths of about twenty million people between two leagues of empires. Despite the traditional narrative of Britain fighting Nazi Germany for the sake of persecuted European communities and/or for Poland’s freedom, the Second World War was more to do with maintaining imperial hegemony and securing markets, although fighting a greater evil. The fallacious argument Britain fought for freedom in either the First or the Second World War is absurd whilst it maintained an empire that occupied, oppressed and at times slaughtered its subjects throughout the globe.
Promoting militarism
What began as a symbol for reflection has, in many ways, become a tool for promoting militarism.
Today, Remembrance events frequently feature military bands, patriotic songs, and smart uniforms, focusing more on spectacle than on sorrow and mourning. At the annual Festival of Remembrance, the display of wartime footage tends to glorify war while omitting the grief, horror, and human cost. Messages like ‘support the troops’ convey a demand for unquestioned acceptance of British military interventions, portraying war as heroic while discouraging critical reflection of the impact of interventions on people around the world.
Hilary Benn, then Shadow Foreign Secretary, used a platform at a Remembrance event in Coventry to advocate intervention in Syria in 2015, the former Chief of the Defence Staff used the days around Remembrance to attack Jeremy Corbyn’s opposition to nuclear weapons and Blair promoted war with Iraq during a speech in the backdrop to Remembrance events on 11 November 2002.
War in itself is shown as glorious with triumphal glee at the victories of the world wars, the Falklands War and the Gulf War. Disastrous adventures like the Suez Crisis are banished from historical memory. This was just one example of an imperialist intervention built on hubris and greed against a post-colonial world that is consistently ignored, as I expect the catastrophic invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan will be in the decades to come.
The poppy today
It is not just that the fundamental lessons from World War I about the futility of war and the need for diplomatic solutions remain largely unlearned. In its official usage, the poppy now stands for the opposite, for the promotion of war. Poppy-adorned British leaders continue to advocate increased military spending, breach human rights and escalate involvement in conflicts that bring us to the brink of new wars. Two pressing examples are Ukraine and Gaza.
In Ukraine, instead of advocating for peace and an end to a disastrous war, which some reports suggest has caused a million casualties, mainstream politicians continue to demand more arms for the meat grinder. Either out of military naivety or amoral thinking, they try to continue prosecuting a war that will only create more death and destruction until negotiations end it.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, the phrase ‘Never Again’ seems to lose all meaning as a live-streamed genocide unfolds. According to the medical journal The Lancet, the estimated death toll in Gaza could have been over 186,000 people a few months ago, and so would be even greater now. Amidst this genocide, almost every international organisation or individual of standing who has spoken against this onslaught has been publicly vilified in the West as arms and trade continue to flow to the state in the throes of ‘genocide-mania’.
Adding to this contradiction is that major arms companies like BAE Systems and Boeing Defence UK sponsor Remembrance events, profiting from the wars that Remembrance ostensibly mourns. Such sponsorship highlights a troubling alliance between military interests and Remembrance activities.
Taxpayer money intended for vital services is increasingly funnelled toward defence contractors who gain directly from global conflicts, particularly in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Amidst these contradictions, traditional Remembrance activities seem at odds with their original purpose, promoting militarism rather than reflection and remembrance.
Military spending is only increasing. Despite the cuts and outsourcing of vital services to the private sector, due to the imagined £22 billion fiscal blackhole, military spending went up, with an extra £2.9 billion pounds for the MoD annually and £3 billion to go to Ukraine. At the same time, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is committed to raising defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, while funding for vital social programs is being cut. Labour’s refusal to lift the two-child benefit cap, which would bring 300,000 children out of poverty, highlights the priority given to defence at the expense of basic welfare, underscoring the hypocrisy embedded in Remembrance as practised today.
Paradoxically, former members of the armed forces receive little or no support. Even with the fanfare of Remembrance, servicemen and women, along with their families, have suffered from pay cuts due to government austerity; 2,110 households with veterans were classed as homeless in 2022-2023, up from 1,850 the year before. This worrying rise is parallel to the suffering faced by the rest of the country.
Wilfred Owen’s words, written from the trenches of the First World War, speak to a raw, unfiltered truth of war that today’s Remembrance often neglects. He captures the horrific experience of battle:
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori [It is sweet and proper to die for one’s country].
Source: Counterfire