White poppy

[11][12] Those who endorse the white poppy campaign include actor Mark Rylance,[13] poet Benjamin Zephaniah[14] and rapper Lowkey.

In previous years, the annual white poppy appeal was run as a fundraiser for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament around the time of Hiroshima Day in August.

Responsibility for organising the annual appeal was transferred to Peace Movement Aotearoa, as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in New Zealand closed down in 2008.

[21] Some Irish nationalists "see the poppy as representing the army that denied them independence in the 1920s and that returned in the late 1960s, bringing with it such events as Bloody Sunday.

"[25] Salisbury MP Robert Key disagreed, and later that year asked British prime minister Margaret Thatcher her opinion on the issue.

[25] In The Guardian, artist Steve Bell published a cartoon satirising Thatcher's opposition to white poppies, which he allowed the Peace Pledge Union to republish.

[28] In 2018, UK Conservative MP Johnny Mercer tweeted that he thought white poppies were "attention seeking rubbish".

[10] Mercer repeated these views in 2019, after being appointed as Minister for Defence People and Veterans in Boris Johnson's government, accusing white poppy wearers of “hijacking symbolism for their own ends”.

[29] In 2022 Scottish National Party politician, Michelle Thomson MSP, sparked controversy over wearing a homemade white poppy with a "Yes!"