News
Remembrance Is Not a Cause for Rebranding
— 3 mins read
The Royal British Legion’s £8 Pride poppy answers a question nobody asked, and hands its critics a reason to walk away.
Every November the country performs a small act of agreement. Strangers on a train, ministers at the Cenotaph, a teenager on a Saturday shift all wear the same red flower, and it means the same thing. Remember the dead. Support the living who served. Nothing else is asked of you.
That is why the RBL Pride Poppy Badge jars. On sale in the Legion’s own shop for £8, it sets the poppy against the colours of the Progress Pride flag. The product page says it “symbolises support for our LGBTIQ+ community” and offers solidarity with those who faced discrimination over sexual orientation or gender identity.
The badge is not new. It launched in October 2024 and was briefly pulled from the online shop after a backlash. The Legion then restored it and blamed a technical error. Two years on, the badge is still there, and so is the argument.
The injustice behind it is real. Until January 2000, gay, lesbian and bisexual people were banned from the Armed Forces, and many were dismissed or prosecuted. The government now runs a compensation scheme for those affected. That is the proper remedy, and it is the state’s job to deliver it.
A lapel badge does none of that. What it does is split one symbol into categories. If the red poppy needs a rainbow edition to tell gay veterans they are welcome, what is the plain one saying? For more than a century the answer has been simple: everyone. Jeff Williams, a Falklands veteran and former Royal Marine, put it plainly: “Wearing the poppy is about remembering all those who fought irrespective of gender, race and sexuality.”
Jeff Williams, a Falklands veteran and former Royal Marine, put it plainly: “Wearing the poppy is about remembering all those who fought irrespective of gender, race and sexuality.”
The design isn’t neutral either. The Progress Pride flag carries the politics of the current gender debate, and even some gay campaigners objected. Kate Barker of the LGB Alliance said it represents “gays and lesbians being pushed out of their own movement”. The Legion depends on the goodwill of the whole country. It has picked a side in a live dispute, and picked the one most likely to divide.
This is where the boycott talk comes from. In 2024, some supporters said publicly that they would never buy another poppy. Last year the row widened. Esther McVey attacked the Legion for employing a Head of Diversity and Inclusion on around £65,000, and Laurence Fox said he could not bring himself to contribute. In The Critic, Josephine Bartosch called it mission creep.
Be clear about scale, though. There has been no mass walkout. The 2025 Poppy Appeal raised £56.6 million, the highest total since before the pandemic. The British public has not abandoned the poppy.
That is exactly the point. The Legion does not need new badges to sell its cause, because the cause sells itself. Every pound spent persuading people that the poppy is inclusive is spent on a problem that never existed. Every news cycle about a rainbow poppy is one not spent on the people the appeal exists to help.
The Legion understands the principle when it suits. In September it told Rushmoor People First, a Hampshire group behind anti-asylum protests that had been running unauthorised “Raise the Poppies” fundraisers, that it wanted “no association with the politics, rhetoric or actions” of the group, and that the poppy should serve no political agenda. Quite right. But the rule should cut both ways. A poppy dressed in one movement’s flag is as much a political statement as a poppy hung from a lamp post by another.
This year’s appeal, launched last week, focuses on Armed Forces families and is aiming for more than £50 million. It is a good cause, plainly made. The Legion should let the red poppy do what it has always done and quietly retire the merchandise that asks the country to pick a side.
Wear the red one. It already includes everyone.
