Army wants Remembrance Day to be less Christian

Ex-servicemen have written to Defence Secretary Grant Shapps to precise concerns about an alleged Army policy stating that Remembrance Day needs to be “agnostic of non secular elements”. 

The Telegraph reports that the guidance was published in June 2022 with the aim of promoting inclusion and variety. 

It states that “Acts of Remembrance, on Armistice Day and others, needs to be inclusive and seek to avoid being conducted as a completely religious event”.

The letter to Shapps has been signed by 12 former senior military figures, including Major General Julian Thompson, Rear Admiral Roger Lane-Nott and Lieutenant General Sir Henry Beverly. 

In the letter, they call the policy “a specific insult to our ancestors who fought and died to steer the world in ending slavery” and said that civic culture across the UK on eleventh November is “sacred, Christian, tolerant and inclusive on our terms”.

“No one should must be reminded that this can be a welcoming, inclusive and principally Christian country,” they said. 

The newspaper reports that Shapps, who’s Jewish, is “furious” concerning the policy and is “not offended one bit by Christian remembrance services”. 

“In fact, he believes it’s on the core of our nation’s history and who we’re,” a source near Shapps told The Telegraph.