EXCLUSIVE: The major impediment to reintroducing national service will be convincing the population conditioned to life in peacetime that war is a real possibility, warn experts.
As of January 2025, the British Army’s strength sat at just 73,847 trained regular troops (Image: Getty)
Britons have been issued a stark warning that the return of conscription may move from a distant historical memory to a modern necessity as global tensions reach a boiling point. With conflict simmering on the edges of Europe, a leading expert has delivered a blunt assessment for the nation’s youth, stating: “It’s not looking good.”
The renewed debate over the “citizen army” follows comments by Liberal Democrat MP Mike Martin, a former Army officer and veteran of Afghanistan. As of January 2025, the British Army’s strength sat at just 73,847 trained regular troops—its smallest footprint since the era of Napoleon. Mr Martin has stated unequivocally that the UK would be forced to impose conscription in the event of a major conventional war with Russia.
Former Tory MP Tobias Ellwood (Image: Getty)
He argues the current volunteer-only model is insufficient to sustain a prolonged conflict, with the British Army’s strength sitting at its smallest footprint since Napoleon.
Professor Richard Vinen, a historian at King’s College London and author of a definitive study on postwar National Service, says the military remains conflicted over the value of draftees. Professor Vinen said: “The Army tends to say conscripts were more trouble than they were worth; they prefer the idea that the Army is a super-professional force and that these ‘half-witted’ young men were useless.”
Professor Vinen added: “But the truth is, when National Service was finally abolished, the very last men were actually kept in for an extra six months because the Army couldn’t live without them. In many ways, the Army certainly needed them.” He explained that while National Service was theoretically universal, exemptions rose toward the end. Prof Vinen said: “As warfare becomes more modern and technical, you need more training, which makes short-term conscripts less useful.”
The original era of conscription ended following the 1957 Sandys Defence Review, which reoriented strategy toward nuclear weapons. Prof Vinen noted: “It was a Conservative government that abolished it. While some Conservatives today assume they’d be in favour of it, the government back then knew it was electorally toxic.” A post-war baby boom eventually supplied enough volunteers to end the draft by the early 1960s.
Addressing the current lack of “war memory,” Prof Vinen argued the population of the 1950s was “educated” by the Second World War. Prof Vinen said: “The conscripts of the 1950s lived through the Blitz. They grew up in a culture where military service was taken for granted.” He also highlighted a shift in how the state treats casualties, noting that modern society has a far lower tolerance for loss.
