Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has rejected accusations of politicising Remembrance Sunday after being criticised for linking the event to the UK rejoining the European Union’s Erasmus scheme.
Her department announced on Saturday night that “as we mark Remembrance Sunday, Erasmus+ will give a new generation the chance to build connections across Europe”.
That sparked a backlash from the Conservatives, who said “veterans did not fight for a student exchange scheme” and accused her of making an “EU membership pitch”.
Nandy said she was “horrified” by the Tory response and insisted that the expanded EU scheme for study and work would help young Britons recognise wartime sacrifice.
The UK is rejoining the scheme in January, six years after leaving it as part of the Brexit deal.
On Saturday, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport drew comparisons between that scheme and events on Sunday to commemorate veterans who had died in conflict.
Referring to the scheme, Nandy said in her department’s press release: “As we remember the immense courage of those who served our country, we honour them by building the best opportunities for the next generation through closeness and collaboration with our allies.”
Conservative Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake described her comments as “tone deaf and frankly shameful” and called on Nandy to apologise.
He said the bonds that veterans forged “run far deeper” than Erasmus.
“It is not a day for a Labour minister to try to make an EU membership pitch,” he added.
Reform leader Nigel Farage told the : “For Lisa Nandy to use Remembrance Sunday to announce this and say it’s all about peace, it’s all about the war – I find that very, very poor taste.”
Peter Sharples, chief executive of the Veterans Institute, told the Telegraph that people should “just honour the fallen” on Remembrance Sunday rather than discussing “party political matters”.
Asked about the criticism on the ‘s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Nandy stood by her initial remarks.
“It was Winston Churchill after the Second World War who talked about extending the hand of friendship across Europe and making sure that we honoured the legacy of that generation,” she said.
She said that after Brexit “we closed off opportunities for young people from this country to understand not just the impact that generation made here in the UK, but the way in which they went off and fought for the freedom of people across Europe”.
Asked to respond to accusations she had chosen Remembrance Sunday to “promote part of the new deal the government has done with the EU”, Nandy said she was “not choosing today or any day actually to promote a deal with the EU”.
Pressed about linking the day to what the government believes are the cultural benefits of the scheme, Nandy said: “There was a time where that wouldn’t have even raised an eyebrow as somehow political, it was just common sense – and it is common sense.”