Last week, we submitted this letter to the Editor of The Telegraph. It was not selected, so we will publish it here:
Dear Editor,
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon and Sir David Hempleman-Adams are right that Britain needs stronger defences and better opportunities for its young people. They offer little evidence, however, that conscription would deliver either.
The organisations they celebrate, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, Outward Bound and St John Ambulance are all voluntary. Why should their success justify compulsion?
Nor is Sweden quite the model the authors imagine. Fewer than one in ten young Swedes were selected for military training in 2026, under an extraordinarily selective system. Nor does it provide the mythical social melting pot.
National service is unlikely to be a career booster or a cure for youth unemployment, either. In Sweden, compulsory military service imposes lasting costs on education, careers and future earnings. The same agency estimated that a year of conscription reduces expected lifetime earnings and pension by approximately £42,500.
Britain needs well-trained, properly paid and motivated military personnel, not a compulsory solution to the perceived aimlessness of its youth. There is every reason to offer young people more opportunities to serve their country, but none of the authors’ arguments establishes why they must be forced to do so.
Ian Golan
Oscar Gill-Lewis
EndConscription.com
