Naomi Hewitt

So what do we know about the National Service plan? And what does it all mean in practical terms? (Long tweet, out of necessity. Please expand to see the whole thing.) There are two suggested routes to completing compulsory National Service: armed forces, and civilian. The armed forces route will be a commitment of a year full-time. The plan suggests that 30,000 people a year would be accepted, with an unknown larger number competing for those places. For comparison, around 10,000 people a year are trained at the moment, so this would quadruple the training load. Nothing is ready for a burden that size, from training staff to equipment to logistics to accommodation to support structures. It seems pretty clear that the stated cost of the programme doesn't include any costs associated with scaling training capacity. Those undergoing military training will receive a "stipend" to help with their costs, but it's not clear that they would get a proper salary. (For comparison, the Army pays soldiers in training £18,687 a year from day 1 of their course.) It is also worth noting that current Army recruitment is experiencing enormous problems. It has been managed by Capita (big Tory crony firm) since 2012, and has managed to lose 70% of potential recruits over the course of the entire training funnel. The civilian route will be a commitment equivalent to a weekend a month for a year (25 days in total). Roles might include working as special constables, paramedics etc. In other words, coerced recruits would be placed into the types of jobs that require training, often extensive training. Existing overworked staff will have to take time out of their busy schedules to supervise and manage stroppy 18-year olds who have been dragooned into being there, and who are highly likely to forget what they've been taught given there's a month-long interval between each session. Who does it apply to? Almost everyone, of all genders. There will be very limited deferments. University students will not be exempt. Imagine trying to complete essential coursework when a whole weekend a month is ripped from your schedule. And the effect on mental health of having no downtime at all for a 16-day stretch. (7 days study, 2 days forced national service, 7 days study.) Nor will there be any exemptions for people already in work, so they'll have to sacrifice a quarter of their weekends a year on top of their regular job. And what about those working weekends to pay for schooling? Those in apprenticeships? etc. Gap years are off the menu, as anyone abroad on a gap year will also have to commit to national service i.e. to being back in the UK once every month. Ditto any foreign travel longer than 30 days, for the same reason. Even children of royals will have to take part (this feels like a sop). And here's the gut punch. According to the Telegraph: "What if the young person has unpaid caring commitments? The Royal Commission will aim to ensure everyone can take part." Hang on, I thought it was voluntary? No. The Tories have been playing fast and loose with the English language. It's voluntary in the sense that if you take the civilian option you'll have to give up your time in exchange for nothing in return. But it's not voluntary in the normal sense of the word, the way everyone else understands it, since participation is mandatory. So it's a compulsory voluntary programme. And if that made your head explode, you're not alone in suffering. How will participation in the scheme be enforced? The message is very mixed, to put it politely. Some Tories have claimed that it won't be a criminal offense to miss out. Others have suggested the opposite. Call it "still up in the air". Another thing that has emerged is a notion of holding parents responsible for the actions of their ADULT children and fining them if their kids don't comply. This idea has been promoted by Foreign Office minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan, and others. This fundamentally rewrites our understanding of British law. How can it be that the actions of people who have themselves reached the age of majority can impact the generations above them? And where does that slippery slope end? Could grandparents be punished? Extended family? It's also worth noting that some Tories have been making false comparisons with compulsory education to 18 (where the onus IS on parents to ensure their children attend). The difference of course being that magic "18" figure. One issue is about the behaviour of people under the age of majority, the other is not. They cannot therefore be equated. There's been pushback against the notion of sanctioning parents, not least from James Daly the Deputy Chairman of the Tory party. It is safe to say, in summary, that there seems to be little internal consensus, and massive amounts of ignorance as to how the whole scheme might operate. Another concern that has not yet been elaborated: will benefits be removed from those who refuse to play ball? There's also a dubious carrot element to the carrot-and-stick meant to enforce compliance: some suggestions that people who have undergone national service should be prioritised for university places and public sector jobs, and even the extreme idea that participation in national service should be a requirement for anyone applying for a public sector job in the future. What that would do to already hyper-pressured recruitment in teaching, caring etc. is beyond imagining. Whose idea was it? There are strong suggestions it was cooked up by UK Onward, a RW think tank. Sebastian Payne, their director, was tweeting gleefully about the Tories having adopted a plan that UK Onward had been calling for. Where's the money for it coming from? The suggested budget is £2.5 billion. A military expert suggests that's just a small fraction of the sum that would actually be needed, since it doesn't account for any of the costs of scaling up existing training regimes to meet the vastly expanded cohort of recruits. £1.5 billion would come from the Shared Prosperity Fund, a source of funding set up after Brexit that was meant to replace EU structural funding, and which is an essential component of the Tory "Levelling Up" strategy. This would have the effect of taking money away from the poorest regions and stripping funding from the programmes that need it most. One specific example of many: it would force cuts to numeracy programmes for deprived Yorkshire communities. If that sounds like the diametric opposite of levelling up, you'd be right. It could also be considered as the ultimate Brexit betrayal, because it would abolish something that was already a pale shadow of the EU programme it replaced, with nothing to take its place. The rest of the funding would allegedly come from clamping down on tax avoidance - something the Tories could already have done at any time during their 5,000+ days in office, but inexplicably chose not to. What argument are the Tories advancing in favour of national service? That it would help "get young people out of their bubble", meet others, find their way in the world. And that many other countries already operate similar forms of national service. This is a false comparison, because it doesn't take account of the unique situations in each country. (For example, many countries with a national service component also have free university tuition. In Britain, by contrast, it's fabulously expensive and burdens young people with enormous debts.) You can't compare just one thing in a vacuum, no matter how hard the Tories pretend that you can. Who objects to the plan? Who doesn't? No, seriously, it has come under intense criticism since it was announced, not least from within the Tory party. Steve Baker seemed particularly worked up about it. It is also worth noting that Dr Andrew Murrison, a Defence Minister, trashed the idea of National Service on 23 May in an official written answer to a question in Parliament. That's the day AFTER the GE was called, and 2 days before the National Service plan was unveiled. He wrote: "The Government has no current plans to reintroduce National Service." And then he added: "If potentially unwilling National Service recruits were to be obliged to serve alongside the professional men and women of our Armed Forces, it could damage morale, recruitment and retention and would consume professional military and naval resources. If, on the other hand, National Service recruits were kept in separate units, it would be difficult to find a proper and meaningful role for them, potentially harming motivation and discipline." That seems like a full and comprehensive repudiation of the idea, don't you think? The National Service plan proved to be the last straw for the former President of Birmingham's Young Conservatives. He defected to the LibDems after expressing his disgust at the idea in a scathing letter. So why are the Tories doing this? One unlikely-but-theoretically-possible answer is that they know full well the GE is lost, and have decided that they want to lose it on an issue that can't be tied back in any way to their 14-year reign of error. That way, the slate is wiped clean for a spell in opposition. After all, nobody's talking about Rwanda. Nobody's talking about the carer billing crisis. Nobody's talking about a thousand other issues. Everyone's talking about national service. So from that narrow POV, the plan is working. But another hint can be found in comments made by an anonymous Tory insider to the FT: "For a long time people just weren't listening to anything we said. By announcing the election, we are forcing people to engage in a conversation." In other words, the notion that all-news-is-good-news. The counter to that, of course, is that's it's easy to be in the news for all the wrong reasons - just ask a serial killer. From a political POV they seem to be trying to chip votes away from Reform. There's polling to suggest that many of those who support Reform would look on a National Service policy kindly. But what isn't clear (but will be soon) is the impact it will have on the majority in other parts of the political spectrum who hate the idea. And what do Labour say? They are adamantly against it. Starmer rather wittingly dubbed it the "teenage Dad's Army" plan. Thank you for reading this far. Please share this tweet with others if you think they'd benefit from it. --------- SOURCES AND FURTHER BACKGROUND READING archive.ph/Ol5D6 iwradio.co.uk/news/sky-news/… theguardian.com/politics/liv… teapaw.org/SebastianEPayne/status… teapaw.org/TimesRadio/status/1794… teapaw.org/matt_dathan/status/179… teapaw.org/WhitbyHarvey/status/17… forces.net/services/army/dam… bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-6… thinpinstripedline.blogspot.… telegraph.co.uk/politics/202… teapaw.org/edwinhayward/status/17… yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/pol… teapaw.org/RishiSunak/status/1794… questions-statements.parliam… bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd11…