A surprise manifesto pledge by the UK Conservative Party to ‘bring back national service’ for 18-year-olds has been ridiculed as a ‘gimmick” by opposition figures and military experts alike.
Aiming to provide 30,000 placements in defence, including cyber security, Sunak has defended his national service announcement as potentially creating a “shared sense of purpose among our young people,” echoing plans for a ‘citizen army’ modelling Scandinavian and Swiss examples raised by military chiefs earlier this year.
However, as the general election campaign enters its second week, Conservative MP Steve Baker was among multiple Tory politicians who appeared to distance themselves from the proposed scheme, which would have teens serve a year in the British armed services or participate in oxymoronically named “mandatory volunteering”. Baker, a minister of state at the Cabinet Office, hinted that the policy had been formulated without proper consultation.
Sunak’s surprise policy decision to reintroduce national service, a form of conscription abolished in 1960, has been met with derision. One naval admiral went public, decrying the plans as ‘bonkers’ and likely to cripple the British defence forces financially.
This sentiment was echoed by retired General and member of the House of Lords Richard Dannatt, who described the return of national service as a “task that cannot just be imposed on the armed forces,” even as the UK announced a spike in defence spending last month.
Proposals to implement military service for 18-year-olds were also castigated as “unwanted and unworkable” even by the moderate nationalist parties in Northern Ireland. Meanwhile, Reform UK honorary president Nigel Farage took to national television to brand the plan as unserious.
The general dismissal of reintroducing national service has made an already poor campaign worse for the PM, whose promised Rwanda Plan to deter small boat channel crossings appears not to have materialised in time for July’s election. “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry,” grumbled one anonymous Tory official to the Financial Times.
To date, Sunak’s campaign has featured a rain-drenched podium speech, a press conference at the launch site of the Titanic, and, most recently, the botched national service announcement. Monday’s bank holiday ended in the Conservatives suspending Telford MP Lucy Allan for backing her local Reform UK candidate.
Sunak took power in October 2022, following the resignation of Prime Minister Liz Truss. The Tories struggled to recapture voters likely lost following the ousting of Brexiteer former PM Boris Johnson. Lacklustre campaigning has further dented Conservative confidence in the sitting prime minister.
British voters will go to the polls on July 4th and are all but certain to oust Sunak and the ruling Tories from power. Polls show a thumping 21% lead for Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party and the probability of a 140+ Labour majority in the House of Commons.
