Exclusive: Royal British Legion Says Reform UK Fundraising at Hythe Armed Forces Day Was Unauthorised

The Royal British Legion says Reform UK wasn’t authorised to claim any connection with the charity or fundraise on its behalf at Hythe Armed Forces Day. The local branch has now been told not to associate itself with the RBL or raise money in its name again.

Cllr David Wimble and David Turner stood beneath a home-made banner declaring: “Reform UK Folkestone, Hythe & Romney Marsh raising money for the Royal British Legion.”

Cllr David Wimble & David Turner Reform UK Folkestone & Hythe Branch

There was one rather large fly in the ointment. The Royal British Legion says it hadn’t authorised the banner, hadn’t authorised Reform UK to claim any connection with it and hadn’t authorised the party to make fundraising representations on its behalf.

The photograph was taken by a member of the public at Hythe Armed Forces Day, held at Oaklands Park on Saturday 20 June 2026. Wimble is Reform UK’s Kent county councillor for Romney Marsh and the council’s Cabinet Member for Economic Development and Special Projects. Turner is the local Reform branch treasurer. Public social media posts from the branch have also described him as volunteering with RBL Hythe and Saltwood.

This wasn’t a couple of blokes quietly dropping a few quid into a collecting tin. The gazebo was blue, the tablecloth carried Reform UK’s name, website and social-media details, and a “Reform for Veterans” display sat across the front. The party banner stretched overhead like a shop sign.

No other political party at the event ran a party-branded fundraiser in the RBL’s name. Reform UK did.

Following a formal complaint by a member of the public at the event, RBL Director General Mark Atkinson asked the charity’s Director of Policy, Angela Kitching, to investigate. The investigation established that Hythe Town Council had asked RBL Hythe and Saltwood to help run the event. Three planning meetings took place, two led by the local RBL chair, with town-council representatives also attending.

According to Atkinson’s findings, the local Reform branch approached the organising committee and said it would attend in a “non-party political” capacity while raising money for local veterans’ charities. It wasn’t clear at that stage which charities would receive the proceeds.

That explanation doesn’t pass the pub test. A stall smothered in Reform branding is about as non-political as a brass band in a library is quiet.

Atkinson later accepted the point in plain English:

“A political party cannot make a party-branded public stall non-party-political simply by saying so.”

He said Reform UK hadn’t been authorised “to assert any connection with the Royal British Legion” or to make representations about fundraising on the charity’s behalf.

The RBL described the local chair’s decision to accept Reform’s assurance as an “error of judgement”. Its investigation said he had failed to recognise that “a political party could never appropriately raise funds for charity”. It added that he had no personal links to Reform UK, had acknowledged his mistake and was worried that he had “inadvertently endangered RBL’s good name”.

The charity also confirmed that the Reform stall carried no official RBL branding or merchandise and that Wimble and Turner weren’t wearing RBL-branded clothing. But the most important finding was that the banner naming the Royal British Legion hadn’t been “pre-agreed or authorised by RBL locally or nationally”.

Even so, members of RBL Hythe and Saltwood and representatives of Hythe Town Council were present throughout the day. The RBL says nobody raised concerns about Reform’s presence or activities, while the local chair said he was unaware of the fundraising.

The banner was hardly concealed behind the tea urn. It ran across the front of a large gazebo in lettering visible from some distance. Somehow, though, the penny didn’t drop until after the event.

Then there’s the money.

The RBL says several stallholders made donations at the end of the day, including the holder of the Reform stall. Those donations totalled £70, with half going to the Poppy Appeal and half to the local branch.

That wording matters. The letter doesn’t say Reform collected £70. It doesn’t say how much of the £70 came from Reform, how much Wimble and Turner’s stall took from the public, who counted it, what collection methods were used or whether the amount handed over represented every penny raised.

Atkinson’s follow-up email to the person/s who complained suggests the books weren’t yet completely squared. He said the RBL continued to engage with Reform UK:

“to ensure any unauthorised fundraising that did take place is properly accounted for”.

There’s no evidence before us that money went missing, but given Wimble’s public statement “Numbers Have Never Been My Big Thing”, the RBL should be all the more cautious. Equally, the RBL’s own words show that, even after quoting the £70 total, it was still seeking a proper account from Reform.

The charity accepted the donated money because it carried no conditions and, in its view, didn’t undermine its independence. The amount is small beer. The public association between a political party and a charity that guards its neutrality like the Crown Jewels is the bigger issue.

Nor could Reform UK say it hadn’t been warned about the need to keep politics and the Legion separate. The RBL had written to the chairs of every major UK political party, including Reform, in March 2026 asking them to protect its political independence and ensure that RBL names, logos and imagery didn’t appear on election campaigning material.

On 24 June, four days after the Hythe event, Caye Gould, the RBL’s Membership Council representative for the South East, emailed Reform UK’s local branch telling it not to associate itself with the RBL and not to fundraise for the charity. Atkinson says the RBL has since written to Reform again to prevent a repeat performance.

The RBL will review its guidance, consider clearer wording and look at further training for staff and volunteers. It doesn’t believe the incident meets the threshold for reporting to the Charity Commission as a serious incident.

But several loose ends are still flapping in the breeze. Has Reform supplied a full account of what Wimble and Turner’s stall collected? Has it given a written undertaking not to repeat the exercise? Will it publicly acknowledge that the banner and fundraising weren’t authorised? And what do Wimble and Turner themselves say about standing beneath it?

This isn’t a storm in a collection tin. The Royal British Legion’s trusted name was used above a political party’s stall without its permission.

The RBL has admitted the local failure and told Reform to stop. Now Cllr David Wimble and David Turner should explain how the banner went up, what money came in and why either man thought it was acceptable in the first place.

The Shepway Vox Team

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