ACTOR and political campaigner Mark Rylance is backing the wearing of white poppies to mark Remembrance Sunday.

The multiaward-winning actor said that Remembrance Sunday on November 13 should be a time to “refocus our every effort to avert war.”

White poppies were introduced in 1933 by the pacifist Peace Pledge Union (PPU) to recognise all the dead of wars, including civilians, and to show a commitment to peace.

The red poppies of the Royal British Legion remember only the  British military dead.

Mr Rylance said it is an “offence not to remember civilian suffering.”

“I have always deeply admired and taken part in the white poppy remembrance of both civilian and military casualties of war,” he said.

“Civilians now far outnumber the tragic military casualties.”

The actor stressed that the white poppy was not “in opposition” to red poppies.

“Unfortunately, wars are fought with and against civilians today and I consider it an offence not to remember their suffering," Mr Rylance said.

“I also deeply respect the origin and longevity of the Peace Pledge Union's campaign, created by the Co-operative Women’s Guild in the aftermath of World War I, when our brave ancestors were promised it would be the war to end all wars. 

"These suffering women, many of them grieving the loss of husbands, brothers, sons and fathers, also deserve our respect and remembrance.”

Mr Rylance said Remembrance Sunday should also encourage efforts to avert war “with all our tools of peaceful reconciliation of conflict. 

“Too often in my life, Remembrance Day seems a kind of shoulder-shrug that war is inevitable. I do not believe it is.”