The Growing Irrelevance of Remembrance Day
A once-sacred British ritual stumbles into bureaucracy and apathy
Not so long ago, Remembrance Day was not merely a landmark but a feeling; the stillness whenever the bugle cut through the November chill, the unspoken obligation to doff your hat whenever passing your town’s honour roll.
Today, for a variety of reasons, that solemn unity has been substituted for indifference and even hostility.
The sober observer recoils as the sacrifice of millions of young men is routinely used to lend legitimacy to an increasingly authoritarian state. We are assured that those who died did so not out of a sense of duty – or, more likely, because they were conscripted – but for our sacred and infallible democracy, and the unlimited freedoms it supposedly affords us.
For the less astute – who have long-since forgotten their boring history lessons detailing whom we fought and for what – this romanticism is all that can convince them to consider their sacrifice as anything more than the tragic misfortune of an alien time.
This suits the state well. The framing of Britain as the eternal bulwark against ‘authoritarianism’, no matter the cost or probability of success, is too useful to let die – because it can be endlessly redeployed.
Wearing the poppy, for which there seems to be a race as to who will do so first, emboldens politicians to issue these ‘timely’ reminders, which are typically accompanied, without a hint of irony, with the reaffirmation of Britain’s unwavering commitment to Ukraine. But, just as with Belgium before 1914, Ukraine offers Britain nothing that could remotely compare with the vote-winning thrill of being seen to be ‘tough on Russia’.123
As the meaning of their sacrifice is diluted, the national curriculum is to be purged of white figures in all subjects – part of the state’s quest to ‘decolonise’ Britain’s memory. The groups who demanded this now declare, with growing vigour, that Remembrance Day exists only to ‘glorify’ imperialism – and, featuring predominantly white men, should itself be ‘decolonised’.456
It is a lamentable fact that such opinions are not only tolerated, but appeased. When filming a video addressing the rise in Islamophobia in 2023, Keir Starmer notably took off his poppy that he had been wearing earlier that day.7
For those Britons whose names can be found in the Doomsday Book, this predictably sparks fury. But for the ‘new Britons’, repeatedly assured that diversity built Britain, the idea of politicians and the electorate mourning those who died for the British Empire, controlling territories that likely included their ethnic homeland, must feel as alienating as the mourning of Confederate soldiers to the contemporary Yankee.
It is natural, then, that organisers are incredibly concerned by the violent feelings which such displays inspire. Remembrance Day, once an almost spontaneous gathering, now requires considerable planning; risk assessments, insurance, and policing.
In the quiet suburban village of Upton, the upcoming Remembrance parade – held annually since WWI – was cancelled due to late planning, cost, and the inability to secure a police presence sizable to deter a terrorist attack, ‘like the one at the Liverpool parade’.8
Being caught off-guard by an event that happens every year is so distinctly un-British that it would have been unthinkable in the twentieth century. Yet it is now shrugged off, after a brief grumble. Remembrance is, after all, intertwined with militarism – so deeply unfashionable that veterans are preferred to be thought of only as anti-fascist crusaders, who seemingly approved of the scale of decadence and displacement that their culture has suffered.
When this fiction is challenged, veterans are preferred not to be thought of at all. Displays of martial pride are staged with visible discomfort, as though the participants are hoping nobody notices. This year’s VE Day procession, a thin parade of dutiful bureaucracy rather than gratitude, resembled not a celebration but an obligation – a country going through motions it no longer understands.
Separate from this embarrassment is a deeper malaise. The very concept of sacrifice has become alien to modern Britain. A public accustomed to comfort and to the language of personal grievance can scarcely imagine giving anything up – let alone one’s youth, freedom, or life.
And yet, every November, the act must continue. Wreaths will be laid, the bugle will sound, and their sacrifice will be lamented. Yet behind the solemnities, there lingers an unspoken truth: the state that cries lest we forget appears to have amnesia – for they would do it all over again.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-france-joint-statement-11-november-2022
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8dz0n8xldo
https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/uk-to-lead-coalition-of-willing-to-defend-ukraine-peace-says-starmer
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02/08/pupils-should-not-taught-greatness-british-empire/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/12/29/labour-national-curriculum-diversity-bridget-phillipson/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/09/remembrance-day-should-be-decolonised-say-campaigners/
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1830703/keir-starmer-poppy-islamophobia-video-palestine-protests
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10/25/remembrance-sunday-parade-cancelled-health-and-safety-fears/