Britain’s Conservative Party has pledged to introduce a mandatory scheme for military or non-military service for all 18-year-olds, should the Conservatives win the general election.
Some details were given at the weekend by Home Secretary James Cleverly, who told the BBC that “too many young people live in their own bubble”, and that national service would engage young people in society again.
The scheme would involve 30,000 selective military placements, with “the brightest and best” being drawn into cyber security, logistics, or civil response operations full-time for a year.
Everyone else would do 25 days, or one weekend a month for a year, with non-military organisations including the fire service, the police, the NHS or charities.
Though the scheme would be mandatory, there would be no criminal sanction.
Labour’s shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves rejected the idea as being “just another gimmick, a desperate gimmick from the Conservative Party with no viable means of funding it”.
Cleverly told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme that the move was about “coming together”.
“It’s about addressing the fragmentation that we have seen in society,” he said.
“Too many young people are living in their own bubble, whether that’s a digital bubble or a social bubble.
“We want to get back to a situation where young people are mixing with people − in different areas, different economic groups, different religions − to try and find a way of addressing the kind of fragmentation that we see too much of.”
[Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dfid/50019502812]