President Trump has repeatedly threatened to withdraw the US from Nato. At home, Starmer refuses to say when the government’s military funding plan will be published, let alone how much additional money will reach our armed forces. Britain’s weakened national defence could just about scrape through times of peace, but in a period of global instability, alarm bells are sounding.
A racist country inspires shame, not pride. Why would anyone put their life on the line for a nation they are ashamed of?
Conjuring up extra defence spending will be no mean feat. But restoring Britain’s military might, or even scraping together a dad’s army band of have-a-go heroes, requires more than just money. While civil servants battle over budgets, there’s a more existential question that few are willing to ask. Who, exactly, is prepared to fight for Britain today?
According to new research undertaken by academics at Glasgow University’s John Smith Centre, young adults are less than enthusiastic about the prospect of taking up arms to defend their homeland. In a poll of 2,000 people aged 16 to 29, 50 per cent said there were no circumstances whatsoever in which they would be prepared to go to war for Britain. Only 38 per cent said they would be prepared to fight ‘in some circumstances’.
This is an astonishing admission. ‘Going to war for Britain’ might sound like an abstract proposition to members of Gen Z. But what’s being asked is whether they are prepared to protect their family, friends and neighbours, defend their community and birthplace and, ultimately, whether they love their country enough to risk their own lives in its defence. The answer, it seems, is a resounding ‘no’.
This is not the first survey to expose Gen Z’s reluctance to step up to the plate when it comes to defending the realm. Research conducted for the Times last year found that only 11 per cent of people aged 18 to 27 would fight for Britain. Four out of ten said there were no circumstances whatsoever in which they would take up arms for their country. We urgently need to reckon with why this is the case.
The Glasgow research points to generational shifts in people’s circumstances and expectations. Young people expressed concern about the economy, job security and housing. Significantly, the number expecting their lives to be better than their parents’ had halved in a year – from 63 per cent to just 36 per cent. Only 25 per cent said they felt the political system treated them fairly. Eddie Barnes, the director of the John Smith Centre, points to young people feeling a growing sense of unfairness that made them ‘unwilling to fight for a country that was not fighting for them’.
I’m not convinced. Taking up arms in defence of your country was never a simple quid pro quo. Young adults in previous generations also had good reason to think that their elders had it better. And – let’s be honest – the armed forces have traditionally relied upon a steady stream of recruits who were not the sons of professors or bank managers but working-class lads who perhaps had more reason than most to suspect the system treated them unfairly. They often joined up to better their lot in life, not as a vote of thanks for an already fair deal.
The crucial word missing from this discussion of house prices, AI and student debt is patriotism. In the past, young adults were prepared to say they would fight for Britain because they viewed their homeland as worth defending. Not because they could afford to buy a house, the political system treated them fairly, or even solely to protect their friends and family. Rather, they had a sense that Britain was a special country and a force for good in the world, that it was a beautiful land with great people, a proud history and a promising future. Today, such expressions of patriotism are akin to blasphemy.
Only 41 per cent of young people now say they are proud to be British, down from 80 per cent in 2004. One reason for this lack of pride? Almost half of those aged 18 to 27 think that Britain is a racist country– a sentiment they are almost certain to have picked up at school. For many of today’s young adults, the accusation of racism lands more harshly than a charge of murder. A racist country inspires shame, not pride. Why would anyone put their life on the line for a nation they are ashamed of?
We can petition for the continuation of Nato and pledge to increase defence spending all we like. But until we reckon with the fact that so many fighting-age adults will not go to war for Britain under any circumstances, our nation will always be under threat.
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