POPPY sellers collecting for the Royal British Legion have rejected calls for more people to wear white poppies, after a religious group labelled red poppies as "politically correct".

Jonathan Bartley of Ekklesia sparked controversy after claiming white poppies were more Christian than red poppies.

He said public figures in Britain were urged to wear the red poppy almost as an "article of faith" while at the same time being banned from wearing items such as the crucifix.

Writing in the Anglican newspaper The Church Times, Mr Bartley claimed the red poppy implied that redemption could come through war.

The Christian story implies redemption through non-violent sacrifice, he said, and therefore the white poppy is more Christian than the red variety.

But the call to make white poppies more widely available was dismissed by long-time poppy seller, Bournemouth councillor Anne Rey.

"I have been selling poppies for the past 33 years and I'm going to carry on doing so," said Cllr Rey, who has been out in Bournemouth Square collecting for the Royal British Legion's annual Poppy Appeal.

"People know Remembrance Day by the red poppy, which symbolises the poppies growing in the Flanders fields.

"I've never seen anyone selling white poppies. We have been selling poppies in the Square since Saturday, and we've only had one person ask for a white poppy."

She added: "The red poppy isn't about celebrating war, it's about remembering all those fantastic men and women who gave their lives for our freedom."

Ann-Mari Burt from the Royal British Legion said: "The red poppy is an internationally recognised symbol of remembrance and has been so since the end of the First World War."

Red or white?

Why is the red poppy a symbol for those who have died in war?

Red poppies grow naturally when the earth has been disturbed.

The connection between the poppy and battlefield deaths was first made during the Napoleonic wars in the 19th century, when the devastation transformed bare land into fields of blood-red poppies, growing around the bodies of the fallen soldiers.

Before the First World War few poppies grew in Northern France and Flanders, but in late 1914, the fields of were ripped open as the First World War raged.

John McCrae, a Canadian doctor who wrote the poem, In Flanders Fields, realised the significance of the poppy as a lasting memorial to the fallen, and the red poppy became the symbol for soldiers who died in battle.

The white poppy was first introduced by the Women's Co-operative Guild in 1933 and was intended as a lasting symbol for peace.

It was produced by the Co-operative Wholesale Society because the Royal British Legion refused to be associated with its manufacture. Many veterans felt the white poppy undermined the meaning of the red poppy.