Nigel Farage reveals Remembrance Sunday plan after huge row over ‘Establishment Cenotaph ban’

Reform UK won five seats at the last general election, with Mr Farage being joined by Richard Tice, Lee Anderson, James McMurdock and Rupert Lowe.

Despite Mr McMurdock and Mr Lowe no longer holding the Reform UK whip, Mr Farage has managed to muster together eight MPs following Sarah Pochin’s by-election victory in Runcorn & Helsby and defections from Danny Kruger, Robert Jenrick, Suella Braverman and Andrew Rosindell.

Speaking ahead of Remembrance Sunday, Mr Farage said: “I’ll be very honoured to represent the party at the Cenotaph on Sunday.

“And it’s something that will mean a lot to me personally. It really will.”

He added: “I’ve grown up with a huge abiding respect for those that served and I understand, particularly from my youth, growing up in a little village in Kent, what the sheer level of sacrifice was that people gave for us to be free. For me, it will be an enormous honour.”

The Clacton MP was forced to watch his first Remembrance Sunday parade as an elected MP from the Foreign Office balcony in November 2024.

The People’s Channel revealed at the time that the Reform UK leader, who was accompanied by then-Green Party co-leader and Bristol Central MP Carla Denyer and some representatives from Quebec in Canada, claimed the “Establishment had blocked him from laying a wreath.

Despite the Democratic Unionist Party having only five seats at the time, Gavin Robinson was able to lay a wreath after an addendum to the 1984 protocol.

Mr Farage said: “I personally am not complaining, but other people are.”

The Clacton MP, who also couldn’t lay a wreath at last year’s Remembrance Sunday, opted to spend last year’s event in Walton-on-the-Naze.

Mr Farage was snapped in the Essex seaside town and has vowed to protect its service following fears it would be cancelled.

However, the Reform UK leader’s appearance in the town came after he reflected on a local war hero.

Private Herbert Columbine, who is remembered with a statue in the heart of the town, received the highest award for gallantry for his efforts to repel a German onslaught in 1918.

Columbine, who was just 24 at the time, held off wave after wave of German attacks in March 1918 to ensure fellow members of the Machine Gun Corps could retreat.

Speaking to GB News about Columbine in 2024, Mr Farage said: “He volunteered for World War One.

“He was defending a position against the great German advance, ‘Kaiser Bill’s Offensive’ as we called it, in March 1918, and this was after Russia had been knocked out of the war.

“Two million troops came to the Western Front, and, frankly, nearly beat us at the war.

“Columbine’s position was, as with some others, to hold the Germans off as long as they possibly could to allow the rest of the army to retreat.

“And so Columbine was put in a horrendous position, really. Anyway, they were being attacked on all sides, surrounded by goodness knows what.

“And Columbine famously says to the rest of the machine gun crew, ‘off you go, lads, I can handle this’ and stays on his own firing.”

The Cenotaph, which will accommodate Britain’s nine living ex-Prime Ministers, held its first Remembrance Sunday service in 1921.

The ceremony is attended by leading members of the Royal Family, military veterans and representatives from the Armed Forces.

King Charles will lead the nation in observing a two-minute silence at 11am.