Reform UK leader Nigel Farage was absent from the National Service of Remembrance at The Cenotaph today, leaving many scratching their heads.
Other political leaders, including Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Leader of the Opposition Kemi Badenoch, attended alongside the thousands of veterans and the Royal Family.
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, and Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle were also present.
Green Party leader Zack Polanski, who marshals four MPs in the Commons, made an appearance while wearing both a white and red poppy.
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It might therefore be expected that Mr Farage, who is among the five sitting Reform MPs, would also be there.
However, the Clacton MP was attending a separate remembrance service in Walton-on-the-Naze within his constituency.
The service in the seaside town is a particularly meaningful one for the Reform UK leader after it had previously been cancelled over a “spurious” insurance dispute.
To ensure it could go ahead last year, Mr Farage even offered to personally put up the costs of the ceremony.
Nigel Farage attended a remembrance service in Walton-on-the-Naze in Clacton
|REFORM UK
However, the insurance issue meant Walton-on-the-Naze's parade could not go ahead for 2024’s Armistice Day.
Speaking to GB News at the time, the Clacton MP made his pledge that Walton-on-the-Naze would see its remembrance service restored.
“I have an absolute cast-iron guarantee that from next year, the Walton parade will become part of the official civic ceremonies of Tendring District Council,” he said.
That guarantee was held today as the Reform UK leader stood to observe the solemn sounding of the Last Post and two-minute silence.
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Mr Farage had previously pledged to see the Clacton town's service reinstated
|REFORM UK
Mr Farage, a known reader of history, also has a fascination with the “epic” Victoria Cross story of a veteran commemorated in Walton-on-the-Naze.
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.
The brave Briton, who was just 24 at the time and lost his father in the Second Boer War, was looking to hold off wave after wave of German attacks to ensure fellow members of the Machine Gun Corps could retreat.
Fighting in Hervilly Wood, Columbine was manning a Vickers Gun from 9am to 1pm on March 22, 1918.
History buff Nigel Farage greatly admires the story of Walton-on-the-Naze war hero Private Herbert Columbine
|GB NEWS
Speaking to GB News, Mr Farage glowed about the incredible story of Private Columbine.
“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."
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