Nigel Farage claims Government 'snub' Ukip from Remembrance Sunday event

Farage said that he 'cares very deeply' about attending the memorial event

Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, speaks to members of the public at a sold-out public meeting at Hoo Village Institute in Rochester

Ukip leader Nigel Farage believes his party has been "snubbed" after he was not invited to lay a poppy wreath on the Cenotaph memorial to mark Remembrance Sunday tomorrow.

He claimed the "closed shop" of British politics has blocked him from the Whitehall ceremony and he said millions of Ukip supporters will not be represented at the annual event even though his party topped the European election poll this year.

Farage expressed his disappointment with the decision and claimed that the British government chose to leave him out of the event because "they don't want anyone new to get involved."

Speaking on LBC Radio, Farage said: "We're not invited and I could say to you that personally I would like to be because this is a subject that I care very deeply about.

"But what I think is, the whole point about political representation at the Cenotaph is it's not the politician that matters, it's the voters behind the politician that matter.

"And in the last national election Ukip got 4.4 million votes and none of those people are being represented on Sunday despite the fact there are political parties with far smaller votes than that being represented."

The Cenotaph event sees state leaders lay poppy wreaths on the Grade I listed monument and a nationwide two-minute silence is traditionally observed from 11am to remember soldiers who lost their lives in the First World War.

He added: "Whether it's me or somebody else doesn't really matter. But I do think that we won the last election we should have had some representation on Sunday. And I think it's actually quite a snub to all the millions of people that have voted Ukip."

However, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport said their policy was to invite representatives from parties which had six or more MPs.

Clacton MP Douglas Carswell, who defected from the Conservatives in August and subsequently won the by-election as a Ukip candidate, is the only House of Commons representative for the party.

Farage, who also said he had planned to buy ceramic Tower of London poppies on eBay, claimed that the government will be in for "a terrible shock" as he insisted his party will be present at the Cenotaph event next year.