Reform councillors in Kent appear to have discovered there is such a thing as being too patriotic, after their national anthem ploy backfired.
Shortly after coming top in May’s local elections, Reform UK voted to conclude every Kent County Council meeting with the singing of God Save the King.
But Green councillor Mark Hood hatched a devious plan to catch his colleagues off guard – by singing past the first verse.
At the end of a five-hour meeting on July 16, most of the councillors sang just the familiar first verse of the national anthem before sitting back down.
Disappointed by their seeming lack of stamina, Hood and his Green colleague Stuart Jeffery whipped out a pile of lyric sheets, handed them out to Labour and Lib Dem members, and launched into the next verse.
Even after the pre-recorded backing music stopped, they kept up their recital until Reform council chair Jeremy Eustace demanded they cut it out.
Make sense of the mad world of British politics
Hood said: ‘We got to the start of the fourth verse, and the chairman of the council started banging his gavel.
‘I remarked, “But I’ve got another three verses”. He told us both to sit down immediately and that I would be receiving a letter.
‘I haven’t had a letter yet.’
He added: ‘When we got to verse six there’s a reference to keeping down the Scots – obviously we would have had to apologise to Cllr Thomas Mallon, who’s one of our Scottish members.’
Council leader Linda Kemkaran suggested the incident – in stark contrast to Reform’s belting out of the national anthem at the end of every session – was ‘attention-seeking behaviour’.
‘Embarrassing for them,’ she added in a post on X.
However, Hood criticised Reform’s new musical mandate as ‘plastic patriotism’.
He added: ‘We thought if you’re going to do it, you might as well do it properly.’
What are the full lyrics to the national anthem?
God Save the King is quite a long, slow song even in the single-verse version most Brits are familiar with.
So many of us may be surprised to learn there are five more verses beyond that.
The Green councillors opted to include the controversial sixth verse, which contains quite violent imagery against Scottish people and has rarely been sung in the past century.
Typically, just the first verse is sung, though the fifth is sometimes added on formal occasions. Here are the full lyrics:
God save our gracious King,
Long live our noble King,
God save the King!
Send him victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us,
God save the King!
O Lord our God arise,
Scatter our enemies,
And make them fall!
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On Thee our hopes we fix,
God save us all!
Not in this land alone,
But be God’s mercies known,
From shore to shore!
Lord make the nations see,
That men should brothers be,
And form one family,
The wide world o’er.
From every latent foe,
From the assassins blow,
God save the King!
O’er his thine arm extend,
For Britain’s sake defend,
Our father, prince, and friend,
God save the King!
Thy choicest gifts in store,
On him be pleased to pour,
Long may he reign!
May he defend our laws,
And ever give us cause,
To sing with heart and voice,
God save the King!
Lord grant that Marshal Wade,
May by thy mighty aid,
Victory bring.
May he sedition hush,
And like a torrent rush,
Rebellious Scots to crush.
God save the King!
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