All 18-year-olds in Britain will have to perform a year of mandatory military or civilian national service if the governing Conservative Party wins the July 4 national election, the party said on Sunday.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged to bring back a form of national service for the first time in more than 60 years, seeking to energize his election campaign after a faltering start.
The U.K. introduced military conscription for men and some women during World War II, and imposed 18 months of mandatory military service for men between 1947 and 1960. Since then Britain has had an all-volunteer military whose size has steadily shrunk.
Under the plan, a small minority of 18-year-olds — 30,000 out of an estimated 700,000 — would spend 12 months in the military, working in areas such as logistics or cyber defense. The rest would spend one weekend a month working for charities, community groups, or organizations such as hospitals, the police and the fire service.
It remains unclear how it will be made compulsory. Home Secretary James Cleverly said no one would be forced to serve in the military.
Cleverly said Sunday that the main goal of the new plan was not boosting the military but building “a society where people mix with people outside their own communities, mix with people from different backgrounds, different religions, different income levels.”
The Conservatives estimated the cost of the national service plan at 2.5 billion pounds ($3.2 billion) a year. They said it would be paid for partly by taking 1.5 billion pounds ($1.9 billion) from the U.K. Shared Prosperity Fund, which was set up in 2022 to regenerate poor communities.
Labour said the national service announcement was a “desperate 2.5 billion pound unfunded commitment” from a party “bankrupt of ideas.”
Former Labour Home Secretary Alan Johnson said the Tory plan amounted to “compulsory volunteering” and predicted “it’ll never happen.”
Elections in the United Kingdom have to be held no more than five years apart. The prime minister can choose the timing within that period and Sunak, 44, had until December to name the date.
He took most people — including those in his own party — by surprise when he announced on Wednesday that the election would be held on July 4. The Conservatives, who have been in office for 14 years, are trailing the opposition Labour Party led by Keir Starmer in opinion polls and are trying to overcome a widespread sense that voters want change.
Sunak’s election announcement outside 10 Downing Street saw him drenched with rain and drowned out by protesters blasting a Labour campaign song. One of his first campaign stops was at the Belfast shipyard where the doomed ocean liner Titanic was built — another detail seized on gleefully by opponents.
Starmer made his first major speech of the campaign Monday, telling undecided voters that they can trust his left-of-center party to safeguard the country’s economy, borders and security.
“The very foundation of any good government is economic security, border security, national security,” Starmer said during a speech in the seaside town of Lancing on England’s south coast. “This is the foundation, the bedrock that our manifesto and our first steps, will be built upon.”
Starmer said the national service announcement reflected the Conservatives’ “desperation” to shore up its vote after presiding over “desperate chaos.”
Britain’s first election since 2019 follows several turbulent years that saw a global pandemic and a cost-of-living crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Those international crises were exacerbated by problems of the Conservatives’ own making: a slew of ethics scandals that topped Prime Minister Boris Johnson in 2022, and the disastrous economic policies of his successor Liz Truss, who lasted only 49 days in office.
Starmer, a lawyer and former chief prosecutor for England and Wales, remains an unknown quantity to many voters. In his speech he stressed his working-class roots as the son of a toolmaker and a nurse who was the first in his family to go to university.
He said he had transformed Labour, moving it to the center ground after taking over as leader in 2020 from staunch socialist Jeremy Corbyn.
“Whatever the polls say, I know there are countless people who haven’t decided how they’ll vote in this election,” Starmer said. “They’re fed up with the failure, chaos and division of the Tories, but they still have questions about us: has Labour changed enough? Do I trust them with my money, our borders, our security?
“My answer is yes you can, because I have changed this party, permanently,” he added. “This is my vision: a Britain once more in the service of working people. Country first, party second.”
