They stand in solemn silence, heads bowed before the crimson poppy. They pin it to their lapels with one hand while, with the other, they methodically unpick the very fabric of the peace that flower symbolises. This is not remembrance; it is the most profound hypocrisy, a desecration of the memory they claim to honour.
They demand we wear the poppy to commemorate the millions who fought and died to defeat the Nazi menace. They speak of sacrifice, of a war against an ideology of hatred, of a world rescued from the abyss. And yet, with breath-taking audacity, they champion a politics that is a grotesque echo of the very fascism we once opposed.
Consider the fascist playbook, the one our grandfathers and great-grandfathers bled to consign to the ash heap of history. It began not with tanks, but with words. It required the silencing of a free press and the “targeting” of dissenting voices. It fed on the burning of “un-German” books and the purging of “dangerous” ideas. It scapegoated the “other,” “blaming immigrants” for society’s ills. It thrived on “sowing division,” on pitting neighbour against neighbour. It demanded the “demonising of educators,” the intellectuals who taught critical thought. It was built on a foundation of “stoking fear,” of painting “non-white neighbours” as a threat. And it cloaked itself in a vicious “militant patriotism,” a belief that the nation’s greatness was contingent on its purity and its power.
This is not a history lesson; it is a mirror. And in it, we see the unmistakable reflection of the rhetoric espoused by the disciples of MAGA and Reform UK. Their chants of “Make the UK/USA Great Again” are not a promise of renewal but a siren call back to the very darkness we escaped.
So how dare they? How dare they stand at the cenotaph or memorials and invoke the ghosts of the fallen? Those soldiers did not die so that their descendants could resurrect a sanitised, anglicised version of the ideology they smashed. They did not drown in the mud of the Somme or fall on the beaches of Normandy so that their grandchildren could be taught to fear the family next door because of their faith or the colour of their skin. They did not perish in the Blitz so that their great-grandchildren could see books banned and teachers vilified for speaking uncomfortable truths.
To wear the poppy while endorsing this modern-day fascist-lite is to spit on every war grave. It is to mock the sacrifice of the Auschwitz liberators. It is to betray the memory of those who fought a war, not for a flag, but for an idea: that tolerance is better than bigotry, that truth is stronger than propaganda, and that a society built on fear and hatred is not a society worth having.
The true way to honour the dead is to defend the peace they bought with their lives. It is to stand for a free press, for open libraries, for compassionate immigration, for national unity, and for educators who teach us to think, not to obey. The greatest act of remembrance is to loudly, forcefully, and unequivocally reject the politics of division and fear whenever and wherever they appear.
Do not let them cloak their hypocrisy in the sacred red of the poppy. The men and women we remember this November would be sickened by what is being done in their name. To support these ideologies is to forget the very lesson they died to teach us. And that is the ultimate betrayal.
