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Contact your MP to support inclusive Remembrance services

It is vital that we all write to our MPs and let them know our views on inclusive Remembrance ceremonies.

We've put some suggested text for an email in the box below - please feel free to edit it and add to it as you wish. Your MP will be more likely to take notice of personalised emails and queries, so if you feel you can make your own arguments, please do so! For example:

- If you are a serving member of the Armed Forces or the Ministry of Defence, you could use your experience to add weight to your argument...

- If you are a veteran of the armed forces and want to use your past experience to help support your story...

- If you a relative of a serving member or Veteran of the Armed Forces or the Ministry of Defence and want to relate their stories to your argument...

There is no need to address your email with 'Dear...' as our system automatically addresses it.

You can see our position by following the links on the left. If you have any other queries, please contact us at campaigns@humanism.org.uk.

Campaign Email

The following email will be sent to your local MP

Subject Line

Email Text

Feel free to edit the following text

I am writing as your constituent to express my support for the joint campaign of the British Humanist Association (BHA) and the United Kingdom Armed Forces Humanist Association (UKAFHA), which seeks to raise the profile for the non-religious at the Remembrance Services each November.

In its third year, this campaign has seen significant success in obtaining a space for a Humanist representative in locations such as Belfast, Edinburgh and Milton Keynes – to name but a few.  However at the National Ceremony at the Cenotaph the BHA’s approaches have been twice denied by former Secretary for Tourism and Heritage the Rt Hon John Penrose MP, on the grounds that ‘since humanists don’t come together in recognisable groups’ and that ‘not all people with no belief are necessarily humanists’ that inclusive representation at the Cenotaph was unavailable.  This is in spite of the fact that there are more active humanists in the armed forces than there are Sikhs or Jews, and that there are dozens of geographically and socially specific  groups holding humanist beliefs. The representative we would put forward at the national ceremony would be the Chair of UKAFHA.

I would like to stress that the BHA/UKAFHA campaign does not seek to supplant the role of the religious at the Ceremony – just to make it inclusive of those who don’t follow a particular faith.

I am therefore writing in the hope that you might clarify your position on the issue and encourage you to contact the new Minister responsible for the ceremony – the Rt Hon Hugh Robertson MP, Minister for Sport and Tourism (whose portfolio includes Ceremonial issues) – to voice your support for inclusive Remembrance Ceremonies this November.

I look forward to hearing your views on the matter and hope you add your voice to this important cause.