Home secretary says teenagers will not face criminal sanction if they refuse to join military or do volunteer work

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?

  • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝AEnglish
    103·
    6 months ago

    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·
      6 months ago

      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.

      • HumanPenguinEnglish
        2·
        6 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.