Rishi Sunak has come under fire for leaving the D-Day commemorations in Normandy early on Thursday to continue his election campaign trail.
Former head of the Navy Lord West of Spithead has blasted it was “stupid” and an “own goal” of the Tory leader to miss the international event, which forced the prime minister to make a groveling apology in a TV interview.
Reform UK’s leader Nigel Farage has dubbed the ceremony snub Sunak’s ‘Gillian Duffy’ moment - when Gordon Brown was caught calling a voter “bigot” during the campaign trail in 2010.
But the PM hit back and accused his critics of politicising D-Day and called people to focus on veterans who “risked their lives to defend our freedom”.
This is the latest political misstep from the PM after he was urged to give £5million from disgraced Frank Hester, who allegedly made racist comments about Diane Abbott, to a veterans’ charity.
The row is likely to loom upon the Tories ahead of the second general election campaign tonight on BBC.
Seven party representatives will go head to head including the Conservatives, Reform UK, Labour, SNP, Plaid Cymru, the Greens, and the Lib Dems.
