The UK will have conscription within the next five years as the country continues to be “in denial” about the threat it faces, a former defence minister and Army captain has predicted. Tobias Ellwood, who served as defence minister focused on personnel between 2017 and 2019, “strongly” believes that “we will end up introducing national service within five years”.
Conscription is when a government legally forces its citizens to serve in its armed forces, whether they want to or not. In many cases, people are sent to prison if they do not comply. Ellwood, a former British-American Conservative Party politician and soldier, thinks that future national service will look diametrically different from its current public image of “marching up and down parade squares”. Instead of traditional conscription, according to Ellwood, national service will span a range of public services and focusing on shoring up the home front.
He told The i Paper. “I’ve advocated for us to think about that. Society in Britain is still in denial at just how dangerous our world is becoming. And the confirmation should now be there that America is dialling back and Russia is dialling up.
“National service will be a service to the nation to help protect our society. It’s protecting the UK on land, sea and air, allowing the Armed Forces, in that traditional sense, to fight wars further afield.
“It’s how we look after ourselves here, how we become more resilient to increase threats that we’re now clearly enduring.”
The Government’s Strategic Defence Review says this includes enhancing defence intelligence capabilities to meet today’s threats and optimise for warfighting. “Conflict with a ‘peer’ military adversary today would create a demand for intelligence that significantly surpasses that of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.” the review states, recommending faster, more flexible options for recruitment and a “whole of society” approach to defence.
At the moment, there are nine European countries with conscription – Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden. Croatia is reintroducing mandatory two-month military service for men starting in March 2026.
Latvia’s President, Edgars Rinkēvičs, said other European nations should “absolutely” introduce conscription to counter the threat of Russian aggression.