British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak plans to introduce mandatory National Service for young people if the Conservatives win another five-year term in the July 4 polls.
Eighteen-year-olds will have to choose between full-time military placement for 12 months or volunteer for one weekend a month for a year. Tests would be conducted to determine eligibility for military placement.
It will also involve working with the armed forces or in cyber defence.
“Generations of young people… don’t have the opportunities they deserve,” in Britain, said Sunak in a campaign video to announce the new Tory proposal.
The model, which Sunak termed “bold and new,” would be a form of national service for 18-year-olds spent “either in a competitive full-time military commission over 12 months or with one weekend per month volunteering in roles within the community, like delivering prescriptions and food to infirm people or in search and rescue,” he said, according to PTI.
This was the Tory leader’s prescription for helping young people gain valuable skills which would go into making the UK more secure and build a stronger national culture.
In Sweden, he said, 80 per cent of young people completing National Service say they recommend it to their friends.
It was a plan he said that would ensure new generations and the UK met the challenges of an uncertain world.
The opposition Labour Party hit back immediately, with Labour leader Keir Starmer calling it a “desperate GBP 2.5 billion unfunded commitment from a Tory party which already crashed the economy, sending mortgages rocketing, and now they’re spoiling for more.”
The Labour Party said in a statement that it was not a plan but a review which could cost billions and “is only needed because the Tories hollowed out the Armed Forces to their smallest size since Napoleon.”
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats accused the governing Tories of “decimating” the country’s world class professional armed forces with damaging budget cuts.
"Our armed forces were once the envy of the world. This Conservative government has cut troop numbers and is planning more cuts to the size of the Army," said Lib Dem defence spokesperson Richard Foord.
National Service was introduced in 1947 after World War II by the then Labour government, which required men between the ages of 17 and 21 to serve in the armed forces for 18 months. This mandatory National Service scheme came to an end in 1960.
Besides Sweden, a number of other European countries such as Norway and Denmark have similar forms of conscription for their armed forces.
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