Conscription for women

[Mambo19866]

I’ve just read what the head of Army has announced on DM that it’s likely conscription is to return if the conflict with Russia escalates. Reading up on it and asking some people who I believe are in the know they seem to think this might be first war where women will be expected to fight on the front line. I’m going to be honest this terrifies me is anyone else ready to die in a ditch in Russia somewhere? I thought these days were over but apparently even with atom bombs we still have to duke it out the old fashioned way.

I wonder how they will get around the equality act - they will have to treat men and women equally surely?

Otherwise if men don't want to go they can pay their £5, change their name to Deidre, wear lipstick and a skirt and say they are a woman. Simple.

IMO one of the dangerous fallouts from covid and the BJ government is that compliance in that way will be difficult to achieve again. People will remember how we were lied to and the long term fallout of poor governance.

@bluefrog11 I disagree with your analogy with COVID restrictions. The cost of complying with COVID restrictions was relatively low (wear a mask, keep your kids off school, close your business), whereas the cost of breaching them was relatively high: you might get a fine, or you might infect a vulnerable elderly relative.

With conscription the reverse is the case: the cost of complying is a high risk of death, the cost of refusing to comply is simply imprisonment.

This type of kite flying is designed to desensitise us to the idea of war. Get the “fuck no” responses out of the system now so we’ll be complacent later.

@makeanddo if we got to the point of conscription I imagine the Equality Act and much other legislation would be suspended and the government would grant itself absolute immunity from legal action. This is normal in times of war. See also rationing, food price fixing, suspension of all debt reclamations, evictions, repossessions, internment without trial for troublemakers. Basically you direct the entire country’s economic effort towards the war, with no distractions.

I'll say what I said in another thread. Governments have cut the armed forces to the bone. This is a retired general threatening the govt that if the AF are cut any more or don't get more money there will be no alternative to conscription.

It's an idiotic argument because it's not the answer to modern warfare - unless you're Putin and are prepared to throw wave after wave of ill trained and ill equipped conscripts at the enemy regardless. This isn't 1939.

Closing your business is not a low cost. Nor is keeping your kids off school, for that matter (though there what choice did people have? You can hardly send your child into a closed school!)

Although as we're often reminded, wimmin wot post on FWR are virtually Genghis Khan so who knows. The thought of us heading east with bags full of hateful haberdashery will have Putin shitting himself if the urban legends are to be believed ...

It’s scaremongering OP. To sell papers/get clicks.

Bang on!

On these threads people always know someone "high up" who knows that doom is imminent.

It's called the department of funny handshakes and a lazy eye

There is not going to be a front-line war with the UK in or near Russia. We are both nuclear states, if Russia somehow started to bomb us or got tanks all the way through Western Europe without being nuked by another country, we would, sadly, nuke them. It would probably mean mutual destruction, so let's hope that doesn't happen.

The days of trench warfare and marching through wastelands are long gone. The Army want more money so are scaremongering. Stop reading the Daily Mail and get some critical thinking skills.

They'd get my sons over my dead body.

@Cellotapedispenser has it.

I was in the military for 22 years. Everyone is scared to go and do these things at times of conflict. But you have to decide if you feel your way of life and values are worth protecting for future generations or not. I think that despite the shortcomings we perceive as being present in the UK, most people would agree that they would rather that than live under a dictatorship or extremist regime. Additionally, female conscription is surely just a natural progression of the equality we all so keenly endorse.

I don't suppose most young men are thrilled at the thought of conscription either.

@SnapdragonToadflax I agree with you. I read that General Sir Patrick Sanders ‘does not support conscription’ He believes that the British Public should adopt the mindset of ‘being ready for war with Russia’?

Is conscription only for front line.

It won’t happen but talking purely hypothetically, conscription should apply equally to men and women.

There would need to be criteria- age, physical ability and also some consideration of caring responsibilities (eg not both the parents of children).

But women shouldn’t be exempt based on their sex.

Ideally we would have a fully funded and adequately resourced armed forces. But as we don’t, I’d not be entirely against conscription if it were needed.

Women will not be asked to fight on the front line unless that are already in the army and have signed up for it.

Women are too high risk in war for rapes, attacks, periods etc.

If it comes to war and we need a large volume of people, it will be the duty of men to go and fight.

This is a political statement in an effort to increase public support for increasing funding to the British Armed Forces, after years of reducing funding. It's not a genuine expectation that people will shortly be conscripted.

Well sod equality laws then, we are either equal or we aren't. Why should my sons be expected to risk their lives purely because they are men? Maybe this is the test about if we really want to be treated as equal or not.

I presume they don't actually make up news

I wouldn't be so sure about that.

Here is an article about the Daily Mail being reprimanded for publishing a completely false article complete with supposed quotes!

Same here, I'd happily go to jail for it too, no way am I going to Russia...

My kids won't be conscripted to fight some rich men's war. The country is finished as it is, why would anyone fight for it?