𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

British troops during World War 2 were told that they were fighting on the side of freedom against tyranny, and when Adolf Hitler was toppled, Clement Attlee’s reformist Labour Party promised prosperity and that the peace would be won, as was the global conflict. But today a British D-Day hero has suggested that fighting was a “waste of time” as the country he loves has gone downhill in the years since.

Mervyn Kersh, a 100-year-old Jewish veteran born in Brixton in 1924, is proud of the role he played, but not of the state that the UK currently finds itself in. He was awarded France’s highest honour – the Legion d’Honneur – in 2015.

The former soldier once witnessed horrific scenes at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp after it was liberated in 1945, and now lives in north London. He feels demoralised, stating that Britain he once knew and put his life on the line for has gone to “rack and ruin”

Mr Kersh told The Mail that the benefits the UK got from the conflict and everybody pulling together, have been lost.

He said: “I think it [the war] was a waste of time, because the benefits we got from it, the wartime camaraderie and everyone, almost everybody, mucked in [with] whatever they could do.”

He also commented on Britain’s changed demographic.

The veteran said: “I know the population is changing. Some are leaving, and then others are coming who have no understanding or knowledge of what this country was like, not only just its history, but it’s morals.”

But Mr Kersh made sure to emphasise that he does not object to genuine refugees fleeing for their lives being accepted into the UK.

The hero then slammed the current Government, suggesting that Sir Keir Starmer has said his minister are “going to do this, they’re going to do that”, but then reality sets in and they “say they can’t”.

On whether today’s leaders can be compared to the likes of Britain’s wartime leader Winston Churchill and his ironclad successor Margaret Thatcher, Mervyn said: “They led. They didn’t just try to keep the job to the next day, next session, a bit of sparring with the opposition, and then come and have a drink job.

“They were leaders. They believed what they were trying to put over.”

He also suggested the nation’s wealth should be diverted to funding defence “if that’s the only thing that we can afford”.

The veteran added that defence “must come first”.