The White Poppy

Symon Hill, of the Peace Pledge Union, reflects on the history and meaning of the White Poppy

In recent days I have developed a wholly unexpected sideline giving radio interviews about football. The games teachers of my school days would be considerably surprised, having despaired of my ineptitude at sports. I have, however, been talking about only one aspect of football: FIFA’s ban on players wearing a poppy.

Journalists have struggled to find any group of people in the UK willing to say yes, the Red Poppy is political. The Peace Pledge Union (PPU) – producers and distributors of the White Poppy – are one such group. We have, therefore, been in demand.

This has come with a cost. In the last few weeks I have received messages calling me a ‘disgrace’, a ‘reptile’, ‘intellectually challenged’, ‘totally lacking in compassion’, and some words too upsetting to repeat.
This is nothing new. World war one was barely over before people were arguing about how to remember it. Red Poppies were sold from 1921. From the beginning, they were deeply political. They were sold to raise money for ex-soldiers. The fact that such money was needed at all was a result of the government’s failure to fulfil its promise of ‘a land fit for heroes’. Returning soldiers instead found a land of mass poverty and unemployment.

At this time, the phrase ‘never again’ was commonly used on Remembrance Day. But tension was apparent. Do we honour the dead by working for peace or by showing support for armed forces?

An alternative

The earliest known suggestion for an alternative to Red Poppies appeared in a pacifist magazine in 1926. As Red Poppies became more associated with armed forces, criticisms from peace activists increased. In 1933 the Co-operative Women’s Guild produced an alternative: White Poppies.

The next year Anglican clergyman Dick Sheppard encouraged people to sign a pledge declaring they would take no part in war. Within a year 100,000 people had signed the Peace Pledge. Two years later they formed the Peace Pledge Union. But Sheppard warned that signing the Peace Pledge ‘may cost you something that you cannot foresee or foretell’.

Pacifists had a great deal to do. In 1935 Benito Mussolini invaded Abyssinia and Quakers joined with other peace activists to campaign for an arms embargo on Fascist Italy. The arms industry successfully lobbied against it. In 1937 the PPU held its first alternative Remembrance Day ceremony. In the same year two PPU members were sacked from their jobs for wearing White Poppies at work. In 1938 White Poppy sales reached 86,000 in a year.

By 1940 the PPU had 140,000 members. Pacifists made plans for an underground network if the Union was banned. The home secretary decided against a ban, assuring MPs that he was having ‘a close watch kept’ on the PPU. Several PPU members were prosecuted for displaying anti-war posters.

Re-launching

Throughout the war, the PPU was accused of helping the Germans. But when the Allies captured Berlin in 1945, they found in a government building a list of people who would have been immediately arrested if the Nazis had conquered Britain. They included three leading members of the PPU’s National Council.

The PPU remained active over the following decades although White Poppies appeared only intermittently. It was not until 1980 that London Peace Action re-launched the White Poppy. Shortly afterwards the PPU agreed to take responsibility for it. Around 30,000 White Poppies were sold each year by the mid-1980s. So, in 1986, it was understandable that the PPU ordered only a similar number from their suppliers. As it turned out, this was a mistake.

PPU staff were in a meeting on 28 October 1986 when they were interrupted by a volunteer who had taken a phone call in the office. Margaret Thatcher had just expressed her ‘deep distaste’ for the White Poppy. The phones were soon ringing repeatedly and the staff meeting was abandoned.

Following Thatcher’s remarks, the Daily Star launched a ‘Don’t buy the White Poppy’ campaign. ‘An insult to our war dead,’ declared the headline of one editorial. Between them, Thatcher and the Daily Star gave White Poppies far more publicity than they had received since the 1930s. The PPU sold out of White Poppies just before Remembrance Day, reaching the highest sales figures since the 1930s.

A steady rise in sales

The following years saw a steady rise in White Poppy sales, helped in the early 2000s by the rise in online ordering and public anger over the Iraq war. Not long afterwards there was a marked change of tone in the Royal British Legion’s language around Red Poppies. The Legion’s advertisements talked less about ‘the fallen’ and more about ‘supporting our armed forces’. Red Poppy wearers turned off by this language looked for an alternative. Combined with the publicity around the centenary of world war one, this pushed White Poppy sales to 99,000 in 2014 and 110,000 in 2015.

We do not yet know the overall figure for this year, although we have seen the biggest ever single order: 20,000 poppies to the Quaker Centre Bookshop at Friends House. However, as my colleague Jan Melichar puts it, the PPU is not a florist. High sales figures would mean nothing without the message behind White Poppies.

There are many reasons people choose to wear White Poppies. Those who do so range from people in their nineties who were conscientious objectors in world war two to young people who sell White Poppies in their schools. ‘White Poppies are now needed more than ever to provide a non-militaristic way to remember,’ says Jay Sutherland, a sixteen year old running the White Poppy appeal in Ayrshire.

The PPU has this year identified three main messages behind White Poppies. First, remembrance for all victims of war of all nationalities. Second, commitment to peace. Third, rejection of militarism.

The British Legion are explicit in arguing that Remembrance should concern only armed forces personnel from the UK and allied states. I respect many Red Poppy wearers who reject this approach, insisting that they want to remember all people killed or injured in war. We are, therefore, keen to distinguish between Red Poppy wearers and the British Legion itself.

Learning from the past

While the Legion does some good work supporting wounded veterans, they promote a pro-war view of the world, repeatedly stating that British troops killed in war all died ‘for our freedom’ and encouraging support for ‘our’ armed forces. They also accept considerable donations from arms companies. This is a long way from ‘never again’.

The rise in White Poppy orders over the last three years has put considerable strain on the PPU’s small team of staff and volunteers. Our distribution systems are designed for a much smaller operation and we have become victims of our own success, repeatedly apologising to people who are waiting a long time for their poppies to arrive. We are, therefore, planning to overhaul our systems for next year. We will start working on it not long after this year’s Remembrance Day.

The White Poppy is sometimes misrepresented as anti-Remembrance. This is outrageously untrue. It is a Remembrance poppy. To remember the past is not simply to acknowledge it but to learn from it. And those who do not learn from their past are condemned to repeat it.

Symon is coordinator of the Peace Pledge Union.

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