Politics
Liam O'Dell
Nov 11, 2024
PA
Nigel Farage - the Reform UK leader, former City of London trader and highest-earning MP – is once again taking aim at “the establishment”, after his political party was unable to lay a wreath at the Cenotaph at Sunday’s Remembrance service because it has fewer than six MPs.
While Carla Denyer of the Green Party, which has four seats, said it was an “honour” to represent the party she co-leads with Adrian Ramsay on Sunday, Farage told GB News “I am personally not complaining”, while blaming “the establishment” for not allowing him to lay a wreath.
Sounds like complaining to us…
Richard Tice, the party’s deputy leader, also very much complained about the snub, taking to Twitter/X to brand it a “shameful stitch-up”.
“Why were [Reform UK] not allowed to lay a wreath? We got more votes than Lib Dems, SNP and DUP combined. Yet they all laid wreaths,” he wrote.
The answer is that it refers to a decades-old protocol from the UK government which stipulates that only parties with more than six MPs are allowed to lay wreaths at the Cenotaph.
Farage – who was criticised in 2016 for skipping Remembrance Sunday to visit Donald Trump – should be aware of the established convention, as the government explained it in 2014 when he was leader of Ukip and made the same complaint.
It had to repeat the reasoning a year later after then Ukip MEP Mark Hookem wrote to the Queen calling her to “intervene” (yes, really).
Farage has since been condemned for “weaponizing” Remembrance Sunday, with many pointing out he could well have paid his respects in his constituency of Clacton, over which he continues to face scrutiny when it comes to how well he’s representing their interests:
It’s the latest criticism to be levelled at Farage, after he once again travelled to the United States to support Trump in the US election last week instead of meeting with constituents.
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