Britons don’t want conscription. This is what could work instead ...Middle East

As Keir Starmer’s government appears on the brink of complete implosion, it seems churlish to offer a reminder that as late as last May the Prime Minister pre-empted the Strategic Defence Review with the pledge that national security would become the “fundamental organising principle” for the remainder of his government.

Since then, a drip-feed of headlines has cast not doubt only on any imminent increased spending – defence was strangely absent from the mentions in the Budget – but on whether the military can afford even its current projects.

At the same time, an increasingly alarming series of events – most recently the transatlantic Greenland spat – has alerted even those who would much rather ignore the international situation to the fact that risk is rising.

Radical solutions are required – from the rapid development of weaponry by start-ups to a serious conversation with the British people about what they themselves might be prepared to do.

The real shift seems to have happened over Christmas and the weeks that followed. Polling conducted by Ipsos in mid-January for The Times showed 24 per cent of the public describing defence as the most important issue, double the proportion in December.

Unsurprisingly, that was followed rapidly with more parliamentary comment, some drawing direct comparisons to the moments in the 1930s when rearmament suddenly made sense.

“Churchill was right,” the Labour MP for Loughborough Jeevun Sandher in a social media post, quoting the wartime Prime Minister’s language on the necessity for mass mobilisation – and if necessary, fighting on for years. “Europe must rearm, and we must be ready to scale up if war comes.”

MPs going slightly rogue calling loudly for greater defence spending may be a low-risk way of making noise and building reputation. But it also marks a shifting public mood.

Loughborough MP Sandher is married to the Minister for Veterans and People Louise Sandher Jones, who, like the Armed Forces Minister and Birmingham Selly Oak MP Alistair Carns, is a recently serving military veteran – the latter a legendary former special forces colonel sometimes touted as a potential future leader.

For now, the strong steer being given by ministers and Downing Street is that Starmer should remain, in part because of the wild unpredictability of modern geopolitics. The Prime Minister is due to attend the Munich Security Conference this weekend, which is already looking like it might be an awkward showdown between European and US strategic views.

That may not be enough. Labour activists campaigning on the doorstep say that, alongside the growing host of complaints over this government’s performance, they are now also often being told that the time has come to do more on defence. “People have read the headlines, and they’re worried,” one Labour activist told me. “They want to see some action”.

What that should be is another increasingly urgent matter. As retired UK Air Vice Marshal Edward Stringer pointed out for Policy Exchange, Britain has been spending 20 per cent more than Israel on defence – with hugely less military capability to show for all that spending. Per-capita comparison with others including Poland, Finland and Estonia is similarly unflattering.

That underlies the challenge facing ministers. Luke Pollard, responsible for defence procurement, has already expressed his anger over the troubled Ajax armoured vehicle, having been reassured by defence chiefs that it was finally working mere days before a major exercise highlighted yet more problems.

Opening the spigots for more defence spending does not in itself guarantee delivery of what Britain might truly need to defend itself in a significant war.

As shown graphically by the Sky News wargame last summer that simulated a Russian attack on the UK mainland, Britain as it stands is hugely lacking air defences, has few or no plans for civil contingencies in the event of serious attack or even shortage, has scarcely worked out medical plans for even the most limited war, and has limited options to quickly scale up its forces if it needs.

At the moment, Britain’s 180,000 armed forces include some 30,000 part-time reserves, with former service personnel making up a broader “strategic reserve” who could be recalled in a major war – although the practical measures to do so remain largely non-existent, and in a major long-running conflict even that might well be not enough.

Tackling that threat is already pushing Britain’s military establishment well outside its comfort zone. Rather than slowly delivered cutting-edge technology from traditional “defence primes”, it now needs fast-manufactured weaponry from start-ups and perhaps, most uncomfortably of all, a conversation with the British people about what they themselves might be prepared to do.

This is now increasingly seen as one of the elements missing from the Strategic Defence Review, even by its authors – perhaps understandable, given that the document was largely completed in 2024 before Donald Trump entered office. The review put a doubling in size of school cadet forces at the heart of its efforts to boost national resilience – but it is now increasingly apparent that more may be needed.

That doesn’t inevitably imply conscription – even in Poland, that has proven politically unpalatable despite its popularity in Scandinavia and the Baltics. Instead, Warsaw is simply offering anyone who wants it immediate military training, following Ukraine in recruiting older volunteers – not just the teenagers often lazily assumed to be the first on the front line.

But building a much larger culture of part-time military service might require incentives, from tax breaks for training to a slightly cheaper mortgage for 10 years of ongoing part-time commitment. Such personnel could also support vital homeland resilience – also currently hugely under resourced. Such expansion, though, would require fast and broad reform.

At the moment, it still takes individuals months and sometimes even years to join the regular or reserve, and cutting down such paperwork delays has proved a surprising challenge. That is the sort of issue increasingly being raised by backbenchers including Labour members of the Defence Select Committee, including former Marine Fred Thomas and RAF officer Calvin Bailey.

Whether the Government itself is ready to have those discussions is very unclear – as the Chief of Defence Staff Sir Richard Knighton made it clear when speaking to the Defence Select Committee last month, senior commanders are still desperately focused on keeping the roof on their existing programmes while relying on AI and drones to “increase lethality”.

Plenty of new technology is fast becoming ready – or it will be soon. This week, the Anglo-German rocket firm Hypersonica tested Europe’s first hypersonic medium-range ballistic missile in Norway, a system they say could be in service by 2029 – just the kind of weapon system to threaten Russia’s northern military bases with precise conventional strikes and give Vladimir Putin second thoughts. But such firms need contracts to survive – and Britain has yet to publish its much delayed Defence Investment Plan. 

Some military rhetoric can become at worst self-defeating, at least if recent experience in Britain and France is any measure. Talk from French and British defence chiefs suggesting the inevitability of “sacrifice” or “losing children” can give the impression war is unavoidable, and that once it comes the carnage will be unstoppable and vast.

That is not a good recruitment strategy, but it also misses the fundamental concept of deterrence – the very basic concept that preparing properly now might avert a future war.

While there may be opportunity in whatever reset follows the current government chaos, there is also danger. The most chaotic period of the last Labour government to 2010 was also the era in which Britain’s Afghan campaign went badly awry, with casualties becoming unsustainable.

This time round, the greatest nervousness is over the “coalition of the willing” force agreed by the Starmer government that may deploy to Ukraine after any ceasefire. Theoretically, it is intended to be jointly deployed with France, although the French element might well be withdrawn if and when the French far right takes power in elections expected in 2027.

When it comes to broader preparations, there may be a little time – but not much we can spare. Experts warn it might take as little as a year from the end of fighting in Ukraine for Russia to be able to rebuild and redeploy its military and be able to launch a significant assault into eastern Nato nations particularly the Baltic states.

Risks might rise still further under any new US president from 2029, particularly if Beijing’s recent military purges are followed by increased Chinese confidence to move against Taiwan, most likely after Taipei’s 2028 elections.

That makes decisions taken this year increasingly vital – and it now seems clear that means navigating some very chaotic politics, particularly within the Labour Party.

If that can be achieved, it would be a huge service to the country. If it cannot, it may not be forgiven.

Peter Apps is a global defence columnist for Reuters, a British specialist reservist and author. His new book, The Next World War: The New Age of Global Conflict and the Fight to Stop it, published by Headline books, is out now. He is also a Labour Party member and patron of Labour for Nato

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