UK Politics

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‘No one going to jail’ for avoiding UK national service, says Cleverly (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 5 months ago by david to c/uk_politics

30 comments fedilink hide all child comments

So.... not compulsory then? Or do you just get fined or something? Anyway, earliest policy U-turn of the Conservative campaign so far - will it be their best?

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[–] Emperor 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

In the first major policy announcement of his election campaign, Rishi Sunak pledged to introduce a form of mandatory national service whereby 18-year-olds would either join the military for 12 months or do volunteer work at weekends.

Even if it was compulsory, 12 months training and being shot doesn't seem a great option compared to weekend voluntary work.

I could see an argument for a year of something like a Green Corps for a year at 18 that would give everyone a collective experience helping improve the country (rewilding, working on local parks, etc) but throwing in National Service too just seems like pandering to the gammon vote.

[–] HakFoo@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I wish there was a meaningful civilian corps in my country. The military tends to offer two selling points:

Employer of last resort that takes most-all comers
Disciplined, all-inclusive experience

which would be valuable for many young adults, but there's no reason we can't get a similar model without the whole "die for hegemony/oil/to impress rightwong voters that you're tough" factor. Surely we've got plenty of Corps of Engineers atyle grunt work thete.

[–] HumanPenguin 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

We sorta do in the UK. Cameron set one up with his big society claim. He even claimed he'd consider making it mandatory for teenagers.

Issue is it is funded as well as any service under the tories.