Just before Christmas, it was revealed that the British government will be introducing voluntary military service for young people under the age of 25, starting in March this year.
The scheme is similar to one introduced in France last year aimed at school leavers who are offered basic military training for a 10 month period. The British system is being presented as a paid ‘gap year’ after which it will be up to recruits to decide whether the Army (Navy of Air Force) life is for them. In the interim they will be given ‘life skills’ and the possibility of ‘learning a trade’ (in a year?) alongside a good dose of patriotic and militaristic propaganda.
Initially the government want to bring in 150 guinea pigs, hoping to quickly get 1000 young people through the system each year. And then, the sky’s the limit.
Despite a massive increase in outreach by the Armed Services, particularly towards primarily working class youths as young as 16 (the youngest in Europe), they just aren’t getting enough people signing up. This scheme hopes to eventually change that situation with its voluntary and skills-centred approach.
The governments ongoing This Is Belonging campaign already actively targets the poorest in society, pouring recruitment resources into regions of high youth unemployment and specific areas where many working class youth leave school with minimal GCSEs and Standard grades.
Whilst the British Armed Forces are not significantly understaffed – the UK presently has more armed forces personnel than firefighters and paramedics put together for example – they have been looking to grow in order to prepare for conflict in Europe and beyond as capitalism thrashes around in crisis and chaotic political instability.
Last year General Sir Patrick Sanders, then chief of the British Army talked about a “citizen army” needing built owing to the threat from Russia. This rhetoric concerning the need for a popular mobilsation for defence of the nation was echoed by Air Chief Marshall Sir Richard Knighton who explicitly talked of how British people must be prepared to make sacrifices for the nation i.e. accept less and die more for the ruling class.
Defence Secretary John Healey described the voluntary military service as means by which Labour would “…reconnect society with our forces and drive a whole of society approach to our nation’s defence”. This represents an increasing militarization of society in Europe in preparation for war. The threat from ‘The East’ has been ramped up even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine and it is only going to get more hysterical and bellicose.
We have to respond. And that is why the ACG is part of the newly launched Network of Anarchist Internationalists https://international.noblogs.org/
The NAI is a co-ordination committed to supporting war resisters, draft dodgers, deserters, and conscientious objectors and promoting internationalist anti-militarism linking the fight against austerity and the increasing immiseration of the working class globally.
Not one penny! Not one volunteer or conscript for war!
