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Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Military conscription

659 replies

Donotpanicoknowpanic · 09/01/2026 10:25

There is lots of talk about if ww3 happens then military conscription will happen

This is basically people who sit in an office safely saying we need to either send ourselves or out children to fight and die in horrible conditions

Am I unreasonable to think that anyone who thinks this is a good idea

They should be the first ones to sign up and to lead by example

Any politicians who think this is a good idea, there children should be the first to go

Russia is literally sending troops in wheel chairs and crunches to the front line

So age, disability and gender will not be a problem for anyone who supports any conscription policy's, they can go first

Also the UK will not be invaded, we are not Ukrainian, If we were more like Ukraine I would be more in favour of this as the country itself is under threat

OP posts:
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1dayatatime · 09/01/2026 16:08

NotAnotherScarf · 09/01/2026 10:34

So without conscription in WW2 you'd be typing this in German. All Jewish people in Europe would have been killed, ditto gay people, gypsies, disabled people.... just let that sink in for a mo.

An interesting point, now let's try and update it for today's world.

Lets say an authoritarian regime like Russia wishes to take over say Germany or the UK - either militarily or by the grey zone.

Who would this impact the most and who would be most willing to join up?

So it would affect most those who wished to protest or go against the authoritarian regime- so I'm thinking academics, those with liberal / progressive / left views etc.

Who it would least affect - that would be people who would be happy to carry on with their lives , manual occupations, keep their heads down, right wing views that don't want to make too much fuss about protesters being sent off to penal colonies etc.

So who would be most willing to join up. That would be those who are more patriotic, proud of their country, might have a St George's flag hanging up and most likely more right wing and dislike the "liberal woke types"

Who would be the least likely to sign up- those that aren't patriotic or proud of their country, view anyone flying a St George's flag as racist and are most likely left wing / liberal views and dislike the "right wing fascist types"

So that begs the question why would the patriotic right wing group want to sign up to defend and risk their lives in order when they would be least affected just to protect the left wing woke types (that they dislike) and who would be most affected and least likely to sign up and risk their lives.

SerendipityJane · 09/01/2026 16:11

EasternStandard · 09/01/2026 16:07

So you’d sign up?

I don’t mind if people say they will before others are asked to. To the frontline that is.

Edited

If I signed up, it would only help the enemy,

smallglassbottle · 09/01/2026 16:11

Wildbushlady · 09/01/2026 16:06

Obviously not.

But I think the establishment needs to wake up. You can't stomp out national identity, make citizens feel that their rights and saftey are secondary considerations to political agendas, and then expect those people to lay down their lives for the country that betrayed them.

People will not fight to uphold this current system, because it isn't worth dying for.

They don't consider the plebs to have any brains, let alone be entitled to any opinions or be able to make choices.

AnnasFangs · 09/01/2026 16:11

EasternStandard · 09/01/2026 16:07

So you’d sign up?

I don’t mind if people say they will before others are asked to. To the frontline that is.

Edited

Are you against military conscription full stop? No exceptions?

EasternStandard · 09/01/2026 16:12

SerendipityJane · 09/01/2026 16:11

If I signed up, it would only help the enemy,

You really wouldn’t, if people ask others to be fodder they can too. It’s really that grim.

But your reply is a no though, and yes for others?

SerendipityJane · 09/01/2026 16:12

AnnasFangs · 09/01/2026 16:11

Are you against military conscription full stop? No exceptions?

Edited

Not all conscription is military .

InterestedDad37 · 09/01/2026 16:14

smallglassbottle · 09/01/2026 15:52

Conspiracy theories? Not everything can be dismissed as such.

That's what they want you to think. You know, the secret cabal who want a war and 3 generations of compliance. They told me to tell you.

AnnasFangs · 09/01/2026 16:14

SerendipityJane · 09/01/2026 16:12

Not all conscription is military .

Have amended question in order to be clear. I really want to know @EasternStandard 's stance.

cardibach · 09/01/2026 16:17

Wildbushlady · 09/01/2026 16:06

Obviously not.

But I think the establishment needs to wake up. You can't stomp out national identity, make citizens feel that their rights and saftey are secondary considerations to political agendas, and then expect those people to lay down their lives for the country that betrayed them.

People will not fight to uphold this current system, because it isn't worth dying for.

While I do think things have got worse for the working (and middle) classes, I’m not sure where or when this ‘stomping out’ of national identity has happened. Or where the rights and safety of people has become secondary - we’ve just ahd a big new workers’ rights Bill, for eg. I mean, Farage would get rid of it all, so he’s a worry, but he’s not in charge.

Hiptothisjive · 09/01/2026 16:19

Btowngirl · 09/01/2026 10:45

I am in the armed forces, and though we would obviously all prefer a world where we don’t need conscription, your view is idealistic. It’s giving ‘us and them’ energy to be honest and I find it a bit offensive. Would you prefer no armed forces & we all just surrender to anyone that wants to invade? Or are you ok with my kids loosing their mum, my mum loosing her daughter etc in the interest of your family being safe & free?

As a side note, in peacetime none of us want conscription. Do you think it would be easy working with an influx of people who don’t want to be there? But if it’s a case of ww3, of course it would be necessary.

Genuinely - thank you for everything you do for us. I support our troops.

SerendipityJane · 09/01/2026 16:19

AnnasFangs · 09/01/2026 16:14

Have amended question in order to be clear. I really want to know @EasternStandard 's stance.

Pursuing that theme, I shared with a guy from Nigeria in my first year at Uni. On his return (he was in his last year) he was going to have to do his "national service" for a year (if I recall correctly).

He was such a gentle chap I joked about him having to handle a gun. However it turned out that "national service" in that time and place meant that people who had studied and gained qualifications (whether at home or abroad) had to go and work for the government for a year to help repay their tuition.

Because he had studied mechanical engineering, he was lined up to work in setting up factories.

I often thought that would be a worthwhile idea in the UK. Especially as I marched and sat in against tuition fees.

BookAndPiano · 09/01/2026 16:19

nomoreforks · 09/01/2026 13:00

I think if there was compulsory consciption everyone and his dog would develop a 'mental health issue' which would prevent them from joining up. Plus the 'I have a neurodiversity so i can't fight' etc... Then anyone left would try their hardest to be a key worker in some form. Having lived through Covid I give up on the idea of community. People were so incredibly selfish in different ways.

I don't think that would be a factor in this scenario-all that would be out of the window.

Unless you were actually a candidate for what used to be called the horrible name of "lunatic asylums", other mental disabilities wouldn't make a penny worth of difference when it came to conscription.

Anyone who thinks they could "develop" -I presume by this , you mean "pretend to have" - anxiety, PDA, ADHD, etc is really living in a fool's paradise because it won't protect anyone, even genuine cases.

cardibach · 09/01/2026 16:19

1dayatatime · 09/01/2026 16:08

An interesting point, now let's try and update it for today's world.

Lets say an authoritarian regime like Russia wishes to take over say Germany or the UK - either militarily or by the grey zone.

Who would this impact the most and who would be most willing to join up?

So it would affect most those who wished to protest or go against the authoritarian regime- so I'm thinking academics, those with liberal / progressive / left views etc.

Who it would least affect - that would be people who would be happy to carry on with their lives , manual occupations, keep their heads down, right wing views that don't want to make too much fuss about protesters being sent off to penal colonies etc.

So who would be most willing to join up. That would be those who are more patriotic, proud of their country, might have a St George's flag hanging up and most likely more right wing and dislike the "liberal woke types"

Who would be the least likely to sign up- those that aren't patriotic or proud of their country, view anyone flying a St George's flag as racist and are most likely left wing / liberal views and dislike the "right wing fascist types"

So that begs the question why would the patriotic right wing group want to sign up to defend and risk their lives in order when they would be least affected just to protect the left wing woke types (that they dislike) and who would be most affected and least likely to sign up and risk their lives.

Brilliant. You seem to have misunderstood everything you’ve tried to explain here. I don’t think I’ve got enough time in the day to correct all those misconceptions (or wilful misrepresentations, whichever they are).

smallglassbottle · 09/01/2026 16:22

InterestedDad37 · 09/01/2026 16:14

That's what they want you to think. You know, the secret cabal who want a war and 3 generations of compliance. They told me to tell you.

🙄 try harder

BloominNora · 09/01/2026 16:25

Dappy777 · 09/01/2026 11:20

Well I don’t know who you think is going to fight. All my life I have heard people running this country down - sneering at its culture, demonising its national heroes and telling us its history is shameful. The left have got complete control of academia, the arts and the publishing industry, and they have used their influence to make us hate ourselves. On top of that we have had mass immigration. Put the two together and you have a new country. The left have got what they wanted. They have imposed a new identity on me, and they can go and fight for it.

If that is all you have heard all of your life, then you clearly associate with the wrong people.

I am on 'the left' and I haven't heard anyone who I associate with running this country down at all - in fact my only experience of people talking about how terrible this country is has come from people with a similar attitude to yourself.

What runs this country down is all of the people who talk about how terrible it is because we have such high immigration and hand benefits out like sweets - neither of which is provably true - we actually have one of the lowest paying benefit systems in Europe for both citizens and asylum seekers - and numbers of immigrants and asylum seekers only started going up after that idea started going public and Brexit happened. There is a direct correlation between Farage and pals shouting about how much asylum seekers get in the UK and their campaign for Brexit and the increase in the number of asylum seekers - they started shouting about a problem that didn't exist and turned it into a self-fulfilling prophecy!

I'm not sure what you mean by you have had a new identity 'imposed' upon you? Have you been forced to change your name and vocation? Has someone forced you to identify as an ethnicity or sexuality different to what you are? Has someone forced you to change gender or support left leaning politics when you are a conservative?

This country has an amazing culture - for a small island, our contribution to internationally successful literature, film, music, theatre etc is astonishing - JK Rowling, JRR Tolkein, Oasis, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber etc. Our sense of humour is fabulous and up until around 2014 our sense of fairness and inclusivity was something to be proud of.

We have amazing national heroes across culture and history - from Shakespeare and Jane Austin, to war time heroes like Churchill (obviously) and Sir Nicholas Wilson and Alan Turing.

We were (and still are in many areas) world leading with people like Brunnel and Stephenson being responsible for changing the world through their genius and innovation. You wouldn't be spilling your absolute tripe on Mumsnet without Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage, Sir Tim Berniers Lee or Donald Davis

While it clearly has its problems now our establishment of the NHS and welfare state providing a cradle to grave social safety net was pioneering and if you have ever had to have anti-biotics, just bear in mind that you would likely be dead without Alexander Flemming. If you know anyone that has had a baby through IVF, they have Anne Mclaren to thank for that!

Everyone on the 'left' that I know fully understands and appreciates all of that.

They also understand the more problematic things that this country did in the past - recognising some of the atrocities that were committed in the name of 'empire', the pillaging and destruction of other countries wealth and cultures, the establishment of the Atlantic slave trade (even though we eventually led in ending it), the 'shipping' of criminals to Australia and the colonies.

It is still possible to recognise Churchill as a great war leader, whilst also acknowledging his extreme racism, advocation for the use of chemical weapons and dubious actions in Ireland - recognising those things doesn't take away his achievements - but it is a way of making clear to today's and tomorrow's leaders what we find acceptable and unacceptable in our leaders.

Understanding and recognising those problematic things does not mean that people hate their country - if anything, it means that they love their country more because they want to develop an understanding of the not so pleasant side to our history so we can make sure that it is not repeated, thus making us even better.

The only reason people would object to recognising and understanding those things is if you agree with them - and given, as a nation, we have generally been leaders, in more modern times at least, in promoting and pushing for human rights, then agreeing with those things makes you fundamentally less British, not more.

BlueJuniper94 · 09/01/2026 16:28

cardibach · 09/01/2026 15:28

I don’t. But I watched clips at the time.

It's genuinely fascinating how people can interpret things so differently. I watched the same clips

AquaForce · 09/01/2026 16:28

NotAnotherScarf · 09/01/2026 10:34

So without conscription in WW2 you'd be typing this in German. All Jewish people in Europe would have been killed, ditto gay people, gypsies, disabled people.... just let that sink in for a mo.

.......and how many conscripts were killed? Or do they not matter as they weren't in the above groups?

BlueJuniper94 · 09/01/2026 16:29

AnnasFangs · 09/01/2026 15:28

I'd say that would be a waste of energy. It is obvious what your agenda is.

What is my agenda?

MeridaBrave · 09/01/2026 16:29

My 19 year old DS is at university but accepts that as an able bodied healthy young male he’s going to be first in line if there is a war. He’s ok with that.

SerendipityJane · 09/01/2026 16:31

BlueJuniper94 · 09/01/2026 16:28

It's genuinely fascinating how people can interpret things so differently. I watched the same clips

Nothing new though.

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cardibach · 09/01/2026 16:32

SerendipityJane · 09/01/2026 16:31

Nothing new though.

My iPad glitched and I got your comment and a link but no thumbnail. I knew it would be this! It’s brilliant.

SerendipityJane · 09/01/2026 16:34

MeridaBrave · 09/01/2026 16:29

My 19 year old DS is at university but accepts that as an able bodied healthy young male he’s going to be first in line if there is a war. He’s ok with that.

It would make a lot more sense if he could do what he is good at - especially if that involves dealing with information and having to make decisions and develop and implement plans.

No use to anyone if he gets himself shot 5 minutes into a war.

Also, if conscription is so great, then why did Argentina manage to lose a war on home territory to an invading force a fraction it's size ?

Woollyguru · 09/01/2026 16:35

Natsku · 09/01/2026 11:31

My son will be conscripted as my country has conscription and has had it for a very long time. I am OK with this because I know the alternative is far far worse. My country borders Russia and has been invaded by it many times, so we know the value of conscription and everyone playing their part to defend the country (everyone, not just the military, it's total defence)

Is he ok with it?

Elbowpatch · 09/01/2026 16:41

SerendipityJane · 09/01/2026 16:34

It would make a lot more sense if he could do what he is good at - especially if that involves dealing with information and having to make decisions and develop and implement plans.

No use to anyone if he gets himself shot 5 minutes into a war.

Also, if conscription is so great, then why did Argentina manage to lose a war on home territory to an invading force a fraction it's size ?

They were fighting professional soldiers. In contrast, Russia relies heavily on conscripts.

Plus, Britain established naval and air supremacy.

BlueJuniper94 · 09/01/2026 16:45

SerendipityJane · 09/01/2026 16:31

Nothing new though.

Doesn't apply. I'm talking about people watching literally the same piece of footage - it's disgraceful the Guardian are trying to to sell themselves as offering a variety of perspectives. Tell me, how would you rate their partialty when schrodingers wanger popped up in front of a young girl at WiSpa?

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