British PM Sunak pledges mandatory national service in election ploy
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Mr Rishi Sunak is trying to set out a bold new agenda after he unexpectedly announced a general election on July 4.
PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
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LONDON - The Conservative Party said it would revive a decades-old national service mandate for every 18-year-old Briton by the end of the next Parliament, a striking political gamble as British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak sets out his six-week campaign messaging ahead of the July election.
“This is a great country, but generations of young people have not had the opportunities or experience they deserve and there are forces trying to divide our society in this increasingly uncertain world,” he said in a statement.
The mandate would require 18-year-olds to choose either a full-time placement in the armed forces or cyber defence for one year, or volunteering in their community for the equivalent of one weekend per month for one year.
The Tories would create a Royal Commission to help launch applications for the pilot programme in September 2025. The party would then introduce the mandate via a new National Service Act by the end of the next Parliament.
Mr Sunak is trying to set out a bold new agenda after he unexpectedly announced a general election on July 4
But passing the proposal would not only require Mr Sunak, whose party is lagging behind Mr Keir Starmer’s Labour, to beat the odds and win the election, it would also likely face a vigorous debate in any future Parliament.
The proposal would see Britain join a number of countries that have similar mandatory national service programmes, including Israel, South Korea and Singapore.
Britain last introduced mandatory national service in the years after World War II as the nation sought to manage its commitments overseas, eventually scrapping the plan in the 1960s.
The British Army has shrunk over the past decade, from roughly 110,000 full-time personnel in 2012 to 85,000 in 2023.
Even as Mr Sunak pitched a plan that could alienate younger Britons, Mr Starmer reiterated Labour’s support for opening up voting to 16- and 17-year-olds at a campaign event on May 25, The Guardian reported.
Still, the surprise election call has coincided with a slight uptick in approval for Mr Sunak.
A YouGov poll published on May 25 found that 25 per cent of Britons view the Prime Minister favourably. This is an increase of 5 percentage points from earlier in May.
Meanwhile, the May 26 poll said 34 per cent of Britons view Mr Starmer favourably.
The national service plan is expected to cost £2.5 billion (S$4.3 billion) each year by 2030, according to the statement.
The Tories said £1 billion will be paid for with capital raised from a crackdown on tax avoidance and evasion, and the remaining £1.5 billion will be through funding previously used for the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
“This is another desperate £2.5 billion unfunded commitment from a Tory party which already crashed the economy, sending mortgages rocketing, and now they’re spoiling for more,” a spokesperson for the Labour Party said in a statement on May 25. BLOOMBERG
