Eighteen-year-olds will choose between a form of compulsory national service or community service if the Tories win the election again on July 4, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said, DPA reported, quoted by BTA.
Sunak said there were "generations of young people in Britain who didn't have the opportunities they deserved", noting that this radical measure would help unite society in an "increasingly insecure world".
In future, 18-year-old Britons will be able to choose between compulsory full-time service in the armed forces for a period of 12 months or working one weekend a month for a year as community service volunteers in their communities, the Tories have said. .
In an apparent bid to win the votes of older voters, the British Conservatives note that this could include support for local fire services, the police and the National Health Service, as well as charities working to care for lone adults and isolated people.
Sunak is trying to draw a kind of dividing line between the Conservatives and Labor in terms of global security, after promising to increase defense spending to 2.5% of Britain's gross domestic product by 2030, DPA notes.
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The British Prime Minister stepped up his attack yesterday, saying that voters would be put at "risk" if Keir Starmer (the leader of the Labor Party - ed.) comes to "Downing Street" 10 because Britain's enemies will notice that he "has no plan of action".
Teenagers who choose to sign up for service in the armed forces will "study and take part in logistics, cyber security, procurement or civilian operations", the Tories added.
The Conservatives said they would set up a royal commission bringing together experts from the military and civil society to develop what they described as a "bold" compulsory national service program.
Britain's Tories have announced they will work to get the first pilot open for applications in September 2025, after which they will seek to introduce a new 'National Service Bill' to make the measures mandatory by the end of next parliament.
Keir Starmer's Labor Party criticized the idea as "another desperate commitment without funding" and recalled that the former Prime Minister and former leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, introduced a similar scheme in the form of national service for British citizens.
"This is not a plan - it is a throwback that could cost billions and is only necessary because the Tories have reduced the armed forces to their smallest size since Napoleon,'' a Labor spokesman said.