UK’s Sunak promises mandatory national service for 18-year-olds if elected

Eighteen-year-olds will have to perform a mandatory national service if the Conservative Party is voted back to power in the United Kingdom’s July 4 election, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced.

The UK has “generations of young people who have not had the opportunities they deserve”, and this measure would help unite society in an “increasingly uncertain world”, Sunak said on Saturday.

The prime minister’s plan would entail young people being given a choice between a full-time placement in the armed forces for 12 months or spending one weekend a month for a year volunteering in their community, the party said.

The announcement came as Conservatives gear up for elections, heightening its attacks on the opposition Labour Party.

The UK had national service between 1947 and 1960, with men between the ages of 17 and 21 serving in the armed forces for 18 months. The British Army has reduced in size from 100,000 in 2010 to nearly 73,000 as of January 2024, the BBC reported.

The Conservative Party said the placement with the armed forces would help the teenagers “learn and take part in logistics, cybersecurity, procurement or civil response operations”.

The community service option would entail helping local fire, police and the UK’s National Health Service, as well as charities tackling loneliness in elderly, isolated people. The programme would cost approximately 2.5 billion pounds ($3.2bn) a year, BBC reported.