In the first big surprise of the General Election campaign, the Prime Minister has said he will bring back National Service if the Conservatives are re-elected. Although not all 18 year-olds would have to do it – they could opt to do community service for one weekend a month instead – so it isn’t as bold a policy as it seems at first glance. The Telegraph has more.
Rishi Sunak has vowed to bring back National Service for 18-year-olds to create a “renewed sense of pride in our country” in his first major policy announcement of the election campaign.
Under the mandatory scheme, school leavers will have to either enrol on a 12-month military placement or spend one weekend each month volunteering in their community.
The policy pledge comes after Mr Sunak surprised the country with the announcement of the July 4 snap poll on Wednesday.
Unveiling the National Service scheme, Mr Sunak said it was aimed at instilling a “shared sense of purpose” in youngsters in the face of forces which were “trying to divide our society”.
The Conservatives hope the policy will mark a clear dividing line between them and Labour as they seek to present themselves as the only party that can be trusted with the UK’s security and defence.
Earlier this year, the head of the Army said that Britain should train a “citizen army” ready to fight a war on land in the future.
Writing on X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday evening, Mr Sunak warned that “you, your family and our country are all at risk if Labour win”.
The £2.5 billion National Service scheme will see school leavers apply for a year-long placement in the Armed Forces or the UK’s cyber defences where they will gain experience in logistics, cyber security, procurement and civil response operations such as flood defences.
The placements, which are open to 30,000 youngsters, will involve residential stays at army barracks or other military facilities around the country.
The volunteering route will see 18-year-olds spend one weekend each month working in the fire services, police, the NHS as well as local charities tackling loneliness and supporting older, isolated people.
National Service was introduced in the UK in 1949, with all physically fit males aged 17 and 21 having to serve in the Armed Forces initially for 18 months, but lengthened to two years in 1950.
They then remained on the reserve list for another four years and during this time they could be called on to serve with their units but on no more than three occasions for a maximum of 20 days. During the 1950s national servicemen took part in various military operations in Malaya, Korea, Cyprus and Kenya.
National Service officially ended in 1960 although periods of deferred service still had to be completed. The last national servicemen were discharged in 1963.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Pollster James Johnson says the reason Sunak has announced this policy is to win back Tory voters who have defected to Reform, pointing out that the policy polls well with Reform voters.
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Oh look at all the wonderful new ideas with only 6 weeks to the election. If these wonderful ideas are so great why were they not proposed 2 years ago? We are now in later stages of a game of political poker. Sunak fancies himself as the Cincinatti Kid and Starmer as “The Man”. The only problem is that none of these squirmers have a hand worth playing.
Net Zero destroying the economy, massive invasion of undersirables threatening our culture and society, bankrupt economy – indeed, conscription of 18 years olds, votes for 16 year olds are the obvious priorities for the two ugly sisters who will slug it out to get the keys to No 10.
Neither have anything to offer. Don’t vote!
Do vote but do not vote for Labour or Conservative. What on earth is the point of not voting?
I am only voting if there is someone on the ballot I think might make a difference otherwise NOTA!
I will still vote but not for these squirming parasites. I remember the words of my old dad who said “Son there are no good jobs, some are just worse”.
Why not proposed 14 years ago?
Imagine you are 18 and just about to have your first vote in a general election.
Would you vote for national service?
A professional army is way more effective than an army full of conscripts. The trouble with both is that you are forced to fight where the government decides to send you. Is Sunak thinking of Russia or China, by any chance?
If the alternative is to “spend one weekend each month volunteering in their community” (how many months? ‘volunteering’?) then they will just be slaves to the whims of whoever needs them for whichever undesirable tasks: under circumstances, it could be good education and may even be desired, but I fear it may become more of a punishment.
Yes but those young people are sequestered and cannot rise up against their overlords in the event the people decide it’s time to,start the hanging.
In this day and age who would vote for Blob X based on this policy? It’s like they want to be wiped out. It’s like they know what’s coming and do not want to be held responsible for it.
They’re going for the votes of the “old” (who conveniently won’t have to do it) who think it’ll be good for the “young”
Yeah, but they’ll be voting for the Con-servatives anyway. It won’t gain them a single vote, but will likely lose them even more votes in the public charade that is the GE. Roll up, roll up, and play your part as the willing Jester in our masters most popular game of illusion.
Do you really think so?
I can’t imagine there’s many who were still planning on voting for them (after everything that’s happened) that will change their mind over this.
As I said their main vote is the old (not effected) and I can’t believe that there were many young that were planning on actually voting for them prior to this
Being in the group designated as ‘old’ I object to anyone thinking I would gladly send anyone to fight for American hegemony and FYI I stopped voting Conservative when Thatcher was kicked out. I am sure I am not alone in my actions.
Yes it is an age old tactic to play the old & youth against each other.
Authoritarian Tory scum can’t control the borders, contain crime, or direct the civil service so they’re going to bully young people instead.
Just wait until the DEI Industry gets involved ……
They are terrified of Reform UK. Those focus groups reports must be bad.
It’s not a bad idea, actually
VSO does great work and could, potentially, be greatly assisted in that work by this scheme.
‘In 2022-23, VSO reached 10.9 million people, nearly 7.4 million indirectly and over 3.5 million directly’
https://www.vsointernational.org/
‘…..we observe a significant and positive impact of military service on turnout. We estimate that the service increases turnout by approximately 7 percentage points. We also investigate the impact of conscription on political preferences. When we control for selection into the military service, we observe no support for a change in preferences of former conscripts.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0014292119302259
It’s great for motivated, well behaved kids. For the rest, not so smart. Cameron introduced something similar, a kind of DofE programme for big numbers. Again, the kids who were engaged found it valuable, but try getting the disengaged interested, hopeless.
DofE is brilliant, but again it generally hits the low hanging fruit.
Quite so. These are all factors that a Royal Commission set up to refine the idea would have to address.
The Armed Forces clearly cannot accept any major new training commitment. Probably county Territorial formations, properly resourced, would be invited to step up, given the stated need for more reservists.
Properly incentivised with, say, credits to student loan accounts and reasonably flexible exemptions for the unwilling, the whole thing could probably be made attractive for many, better off without the objectors.
Having spent time around 15-18 year olds, I can tell you that there is a very stark difference between the ones who can and will, and the ones who won’t and cant. A college lecturer friend described teaching the lower ability as ‘an exercise in crowd control’, in that a good proportion are not sufficiently mature to take on any responsibilities whatsoever.
This plan is just desperation writ large. In the position that the Tories find themselves at the polls, is this the best they can come up with to revive their fortunes.? I don’t think the voters have made much secret of what they wanted. They wanted the last manifesto delivered, but that was ditched by our ‘betters’ as soon as they assumed power.
In any case, We already have a National Service, of sorts. Its all the young people working in fast food businesses, like McDonalds and KFC, where they learn to work, and enjoy the value of doing so, learning to lead, learning to do as told, learning to communicate, and accomplish tasks. Our three kids all worked in fast food and it has kickstarted their careers, and enabled them to get their STEM degrees without being in debt. I highly recommend it.
I remember walking out of McDs angry once and my girlfriend correctly guessed….rude youngsters. Not all are like that, but many are.
“National Service”, “Renewed sense of pride in our country”, “community service as an alternative”… This is all a polite, underhand way of nudging us towards mandatory conscriptions, or citizen armies. As “CGW” below points out, a professionally trained army has an infinitely greater impact on the enemy than one full of conscripts.
For this and many other reasons, I have always been opposed to the idea of conscription, even during the world wars. However, at least from 1918 onwards the logic behind it made sense: Britain itself faced a direct threat from foreign invasive powers, as did all other nations who joined in the allied effort and recruited willing conscripts to defend their own respective countries from a direct, clear and present danger.
The wars waged by the west nowadays, by contrast, are all interventions in foreign conflicts and many, myself included, believe that our (and especially the US’s) taking sides and bolstering the defence of, for example, Ukraine against Russia, however well intentioned or otherwise has only ever exacerbated the conflict and riled up the aggression of “the enemy”.
Whatever the case may be, I think it is nigh-on universally agreed that modern international warfare is a much more contentious and divisive issue than it used to be. The justification is no longer as clear cut, inasmuch as our countries are no longer under direct threat (if any), only it is perceived by political panjandrums that it’s our moral duty to step in and provide financial and military support to a chosen side in a distant conflict.
The upshot of all this being, of course, that the advent of a new conscription service 64 years on from it’s abolition will result in many, many reluctant, disenfranchised recruits in despair at the fact they’ve been coerced into fighting in a war they don’t believe in.
This would be an abomination.
It is interesting to compare the performance of the two sides in the West versus Russia war in Ukraine.
The West is happy to spend our money on all sorts of ordnance and intelligence but it is up to Ukraine to cough up the manpower. They now have a serious shortage of willing recruits and are on, I think, their third wave of conscription, snatching people off the streets and sending them to the front in a matter of weeks or, more recently, days, according to inteviews with prisoners taken by the Russians.
Contrast this with Russia which has conscription but also has a law prohibiting conscripts to be used overseas (ie for offensive operations). Their conscripts are trained for specific roles suited to their aptitude as well as basic military stuff. They leave after their conscripted period but remain as reservists who can then be called to be used in their trained role, rather than just cannon fodder, on fixed term contracts.
No one should be forced to fight in wars they don’t believe in, especially people who are conscripted. It’s bad enough for professional soldiers to be killed, but at least they joined the forces voluntarily.
Politicians are far too gung-ho when involving this country in overseas conflicts in order to satisfy their own egos, as demonstrated by that monster Bliar in 2003. No one should trust politicians to make any correct decisions. We need direct democracy via referenda.
We also need armed forces that are defensive, to guard our borders and repel illegal invaders. There should have been a naval blockade established in the Channel back in 2018 when it started, armed soldiers on the beaches and air force surveillance to alert the Army and Navy to trouble spots.
If the gutless government had arranged that pushback, we wouldn’t still be paying out billions of borrowed money to keep wholly uninvited and unwelcome fighting-age young men with no respect for our laws or our country in hotels.
Since it eventually dawned, two years too late, on the diots in NATO and western warmongering politicians, that Russia will actually “win” we’ve had for the last few months a gradual ramping up of playing chicken with Russia. French troops will be sent, NATO just now saying that Ukraine should be allowed to use long range weapons to target inside Russsia and the cowardly warmongering Johnson inviting members of Azov in Parliament.
Russia is also aware that specialist NATO member forces are “helping” Ukraine inside the country.
A few weeks ago Moscow summoned both the French and British ambaasadors for a chat.
Best guess was to tell them that if any of the above happened the gloves would come off.
For the West/NATO Ukraine cannot be allowed to lose. Before we know it we could literally be at war.- which may well be what the rulers of the West really wanted, because blaming Russia is the only thing they can do to get them off the hook as regards their increasingly disastrous economic, domestic and foreign policies since the end of WW2.
Russia will not walk away from this. Anyone with even a slight grasp of European history must realise that. Russia lost 25-35 million souls in largely winning the second world war. Just let that sink in, and if there’s a third then given the sheer size of Russia and its nuclear weaponry there’s only going to be one winner.
It seems that the MAD doctrine no longer holds the fear that it should, mainly due to a generation of largely dim western politicians who have never known the horror of war.
Zalensky’s only hope is to drag NATO into the carnage. Sadly that hop[e may actually be realised.
Are there any grown ups in charge in the West?
Lets be honest. All of this Ukraine situation has been to try and enact ‘regime change’ in Russia. It has failed, and the hundreds of thousands of lives lost on both sides have been callously wasted by NATO. They must reach a peace accord based on territory loss, and there is no alternative sensible option. They poked the bear, and didn’t think they would end up in a losing stalemate. Yet here they are. Trying to press on and double down on Putin is a wicked and stupid perversion. All we have done is make huge fortunes for the US military suppliers, and the ‘pocket-stuffers’ in Ukraine and elsewhere.
There have been two recent attempts at regime change in Russia, the first by Prighozin and the second, more recently, by Ivanov, the Deputy Defence Minister.
I like your creativity in linking those two individuals to NATO but some foundation in fact would be helpful?
And your sources are?
Prighozin’s attempt was never serious and was bound to fail. Ivanov’s corruption had nothing to do with regime change and was simply an exercise in self enrichment, which we are told by people like you, is endemic in Russia (and almost all of the world, West and East)
The US (CIA) has been manipulating the situation in Ukraine since before the colour revolution. Cui bono…
Well, if Russia are going to win, why don’t they get on with it?
‘….this latest Russian offensive is being thwarted. Oleh Syniehubov – head of Kharkiv’s military administration – believes the original plan was to go all the way to the city of Kharkiv. He told the BBC that recently captured Russian soldiers had revealed their goal was to take the town of Vovchansk in two days, and to reach Kharkiv city within five days.’
Oh! No wonder Putin wants peace talks. Stuffed again!
Both China, because it gets cheap oil, and the U.S., because the high international price of oil suits it domestically, have no interest in this war concluding.
So, unsurprisingly, there is treason afoot (again) in the Kremlin:
‘…the reason for his detention was not corruption but treason. A source in the intelligence services told RBC-Ukraine that the Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate helped “expose” Ivanov. In March 2024, cyber specialists from the GUR obtained official documents of Shoigu’s deputy and leaked them. After that, Ivanov was detained.’
iNews
Winning is not just taking territory, it is depleting your opponent’s resources and resolve to the extent that their performance becomes increasing down-graded and they can no longer put up a serious fight.
That is exactly what is happening. Ukraine obligingly moves its troop to wherever Russia makes a push. The Russians then take advantage of the massing of troops to create carnage. It is cynical, it is nasty but it degades the enemy far quicker than their own.
Meanwhile the Ukrainians weaken their defences elsewhere to meet the latest initiative, allowing the Russian troops who are still elsewhere to take advantage of the depletion and move their front forward against minimal opposition.
Quoting BBC or iNews on Ukraine is not a good look.
My late brother was unlucky enough to be caught by the tail end of conscription. Most people’s experience of conscription was of doing useless stuff simply to keep them busy (stone whitewashing, coal polishing) and being despised by the regulars,
He decided that he was better off signing up for 5 years so that he could be taught a trade, which indeed he was.
He spent the first year or so learning to be a electronics engineer servicing and repairing radio communications equipment. He spent most of the rest of his time at a remote spot in Germany maintaining a radio relay station, just him and a colleague. No NCOs or officers except for the odd spot check, and lots of friendly German girls from the local village!
Subsequently he spent a lifetime in telecoms, including installing ground equipment in the land terminals of transatlantic cables and finally into fibre-optics.
My point for this story is that a year is insufficient to give them any useful experience and is likely to engender a thorough dislike of officialdom. It is certainly not long enough to train them even to fight effectively; modern technological warfare demands a quite long appreticeship
I am also assuming that this will apply equally to both (all?) sexes which will further complicate the housing and handling of the recruits.
I am also assuming that this will apply equally to both (all?) sexes which will further complicate the housing and handling of the recruits.
According to Gender Fascists and the UK military there are no genders. Just Zhe’s.
For the great war with Russia (we have always been at war with East Asia); the Zhe’s will sprint into battle in rainbow coloured EV powered tanks, confused by Dnieper vs Dniestr, and desperate not to sweat the dye out of their purple hair.
This policy has 2 purposes:
1-Gear up for the future war with Russia – all planned
2-Address the fact that the UK has about 30 K Zhe’s who can fight on about 3 months of ammunition.
If I was 18 or so, I would be making a backup plan to leave.
You do realise that any engagement will be limited to 3 minutes which I believe js the time limit for Tiktok videos. Blitzkriegs on steroids!
It is not the responsibility of our professional soldiers to be dragging kids up.
Conscription makes the bad eggs badder and the good eggs drunkards.
It is an expression of hatred towards the younger generations by the older generations.
Sadistic.
Under the mandatory scheme, school leavers will have to either enrol on a 12-month military placement or spend one weekend each month volunteering in their community.
If you were an 18-year-old not intending to voluntarily join the military anyway, you’re hardly going to choose the ‘12-month military placement’ option rather than the ‘one weekend each month volunteering in their community’ option.
Like almost everything else with this Conservative government, their words say one thing, and their actions say another.
““renewed sense of pride in our country”
Will there be a pride in our country flag?
And in what will they have renewed pride: a country that is a dumping ground for all the garbage from the middens of the World, the machete wielding, Jew-hating, child abusers, the freaks, gender-benders and groomers and pædophiles, the free-riders who produce nothing and who believe other should provide what they provide for themselves, censorship and police harassment of anyone who challenges the official narrative, an establishment that hates anyone who is White, male, hetero, and worst of all anyone successful?
I can just feel the pride swelling up.
Terrific post.
Free military training for the RoPers? What could go wrong?
Yet another example of a good idea ineptly announced. Read the article and then comment. Let’s look at it:
“The £2.5 billion National Service scheme will see school leavers apply for a year-long placement in the Armed Forces or the UK’s cyber defences where they will gain experience in logistics, cyber security, procurement and civil response operations such as flood defences”
School leavers apply for a place; that is not National Service for heavens sakes and, quite frankly, it is a good idea and better than a gap year for many.
“The placements, which are open to 30,000 youngsters,”
Oh, so it is volunteers who want to try doing something and limited places. We’re not talking here about sending kids off to die in a foreign land in a Labour illegal war, we aren’t talking here about murdering Ghaddafi.
It depends on who the “youngsters” are.
This story is hilarious on a few levels. The attempt to pretend that they brought this up at this moment in otder to win back Reform voters is palpably absurd. There has been no appetite for militarism in this country since at least the attemnpt at intervention in Syria in 2014. Just look at their performance in recent local elections in Aldershot, a town with a trong army presence and consciousness that has been loyal to the Conservatives forever. They are doing this because it has been decided that given major military escaltion in August, they want their Trilateral Commission man Starmer in place and ready. And then who knows. Perhaps legions of young men will pick up a tin hat if they are told to do so by a man of such charisma.and gravitas. On a deeper level the whole international situation can only be understood in terms of acquiescence to managed decline of the Anglo-Americans..
“Land grab for Reform voters”
Whatever you think about the policy is it really something that would change someone’s voting intentions? If so then we’re doomed. Ah…..
This article about conscription made me wonder about a couple of things, because Germany and France have also been considering conscription.
Was Andrew Bridgen correct in saying that:
— We are already at war with Russia, our troops are already there, though the public won’t be told until July or August
— Sunak doesn’t want to be a war PM and is preparing to debunk to the States with his family
And are others correct in saying that:
— A triple whammy of Globalist scaremongering is planned for June/July which will prevent any elections from taking place: Fake War + Fake Bird Flu + Fake Refugee “Emergency Troops”
— It would be perfect timing, since Parliament has been dissolved, all the MPs can easily slip away, the royals have also disappeared from public view before the election, Nigel has announced that he’s going to the States to help the AntiChrist because their election is more important than ours (due to the coming war?). Boris has also reportedly announced he will be unavailable abroad during the election campaign (will it be his dream of a Churchillian recall as the new war PM?)
Remember the Chinese blessing: “May you live in uninteresting times.”
Not for us, it seems.
Well it doesn’t poll well with this Reform Party supporter.
Basically, Sunak would like a pool of “free labour.”
It will do nothing to restore pride in the country, which the Westminster Uni-Party, including the Not-a-Conservative-Party, has done so much to trash in the past few decades.
He’s really working hard to make sure Liebour wins the election. Who in their right mind would want to fight for this country of misfits? I don’t think even rainbow colored tanks would attract enough suckers to our armed farces…