I saw someone older than me talking on Bluesky about the recent local elections, saying that it's young people who will suffer the most from successive rounds of Tory government. I think it's true. If I am very lucky I have maybe 20-30 more years on my natural lifespan. Someone who is in their late teens could have 40-50 more years to go (my partner's niece and nephew might be around for 60+ more years), and the Tories are destroying everything (systems, infrastructure, climate commitments, etc) in a way that will take a very, very long time to fix. Brexit is already generational damage.
That person was saying she votes against the Tories not just for herself, but for successive generations, for younger people. And we need younger people to turn out to vote too, to help us help them.
This National Service plan is the kind of thing that really fits with that. It won't affect me directly, but it will certainly force young people into more difficulties. I come from a country that has mandatory national/military service for men from around 16.5 (it's a very small island nation, much smaller than this one, so needing the military numbers is the rational there.) After which they remain reservists subject to recall for military exercises/manoeuvres, till around the age of 40 (older if they are commissioned officers.) Being forcibly put into the military is not good for many folks (would I really have to spell out how so here?)
Even if the mooted British national service system isn't as full on as that, it's still forcing young people to offer free labour in order to fix the deficits successive Tory governments have caused through brutal austerity measures.
There's a certain type of older Tory voter who will feel a lot of pleasure at the idea of forcing young people into national service. (Arguably Sunak is trying to pull a few more Reform voters into voting Tory with these plans.) Those hateful people will definitely turn out to vote. Things merely have to remain the same - another round of Tories in government - and that type of person will get more of what they want.
I did see an earlier graph showing that more young people were planning to vote than usual:
So maybe trends are changing? Will they change quickly enough? One possible reason for the general election timing is university age young adults will have to figure out where they are going to vote, depending on where they plan to spend their Summer.
So possibly the Tories are trying to discourage younger voters a little more than usual. They probably fear the impact of that demographic if they actually do vote.
This national service policy will definitely get the older bigots out to the polls, regular voters will continue to vote as usual, but whether or not it also mobilises more younger people to go to the polls, I don't know. I guess we'll find out in early July.
i dont like to be political, but it doesnt really feel political at zhis point to scream at zhe top of my voice
holy fuck. fuck the fucking tories
(also yes zhe finding-out-how-to-vote after just coming back from uni zhing is very real and i need to figure it out asap)
the stupid thing about national service and conscription overall is that unless you're in a desperate war, it isn't even a good idea for the military. keeping discipline among troops is bad enough with a "professional" army, now try doing it with people who don't even want to be there
they keep trying to make it happen in the philippines too (mimicking Singapore as usual which is an Entire Fucking Can Of Worms with how they handle shit over there)