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28 November 2016

Why Nigel Farage’s claim that Jeremy Corbyn won’t sing the national anthem is poppycock

Of course, he wasn't around to check on Remembrance Sunday himself...

By Julia Rampen

Nigel Farage launched an attack on the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn while announcing the new Ukip leader, Paul Nuttall, today. 

He said of the Labour party that it is “led by a leader who refuses to sing the national anthem”.

Nuttall too claimed that in Corbyn “they have a leader who will not sing the national anthem”.

But is this true? The Staggers decided to investigate. 

In September 2015, shortly after becoming party leader, it is true that Corbyn did not sing the national anthem at a Battle of Britain event. But a source confirmed he would do so at Remembrance Sunday. Here is a picture of him singing in 2015.

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And here is him again, in 2016…

So where is the picture of Mr Farage singing the national anthem? Well, this was a little harder to track down, as Farage spent Remembrance weekend going up and down in President-elect Donald Trump’s golden lift, wearing nothing on his lapel bar a US-UK flag pin. 

Indeed, his decision to skip such an important commemoration led the Welsh Labour leader Carwyn Jones to brand him a “grinning, poppy-less popinjay”.