Mark Francois declares Britons should 'never take living in a free country for granted' in poignant Remembrance Sunday message

Today, thousands gathered in central London to pay tribute to the war dead, with King Charles leading the nation in remembrance at The Cenotaph.

Francois reflected on how his late father, who served in the Royal Navy during D-Day, had instilled in him the vital importance of protecting democratic freedoms.

Reginald Francois, born into a working class family in north London in 1925, joined the Royal Navy at age 18 in 1943. By the age of 19, he was serving as a first class sailor aboard HMS Paris during the D-Day landings.

"For me, it's always a poignant day, personally," Francois told GB News. "What we do today is we commemorate those people who gave their lives, who made the ultimate sacrifice so that we can have the privilege of living in a free country."

Like many veterans, Francois noted that his father rarely spoke about his wartime experiences.

However, one late night after a naval reunion in London proved to be a pivotal moment in their relationship, when his father opened up about his wartime service.

"Like a lot of veterans, he didn't talk about it often," Francois recalled. "But when I was a boy, when I was about 11, he'd gone to a naval reunion in London, and he came home late at night."

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That evening proved to be a rare moment of candour about the war from his father. Francois recalled: "I was literally at my father's knee as he began talking about what happened on D-Day," he said. "He didn't glorify it or anything remotely like that."

The conversation focused on the human cost of liberation. "He kept talking about the number of young men that had died that day to liberate us from Nazi tyranny. It obviously deeply affected him," Francois shared.

Tragically, his father passed away just a few years later, when Francois was 14. The Shadow Defence Minister explained how this formative conversation helped shape his political career.

He stated: "In many ways, it's one of the reasons I came into politics. And so for me, that was that was a very formative moment.

"But I think my father was right. We should we never, ever take living in a free country for granted."

He highlighted the stark contrast with less democratic nations. "We live in a country where people can have different views. They can express peacefully different opinions, and they're not carted off to a gulag for doing it," he said.

"There are many people around the world who don't have that privilege. We do because of the people who gave their lives, who we commemorate today. And long may we go on doing it."