The government ministries have strongly denied they are considering bringing back conscription in the face of a less stable world security picture even as defence figures discuss how the Army is learning from “mission rehearsal” Ukraine to implement a “citizen army” at scale and pace.
Downing Street was moved to issue a strong denial it was considering bringing back conscription — abolished in the UK in 1960 — after remarks by the head of the British Army warning of the small and dwindling size of the force and the possible need to quickly induct, train, and arm civilians in the face of what he described as a “Russian threat” in a speech on Wednesday.
The Prime Minister’s spokesman told the Daily Telegraph that the British army is a voluntary force and “there’s no plan for conscription”. Even having the conversation wasn’t productive, the Prime Minister’s office said, and was quoted as having stated: “I think these kinds of hypothetical scenarios, talking about a conflict, are not helpful and I don’t think it’s right to engage with them”.
A clear denial then, but even as it was issued, figures in the Ministry of Defence — the government department which administers the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force — were briefing a national newspaper on how helpful the Ukraine war had been in preparing Britain to implement conscription quickly if it were found to be needed.
An unnamed source inside the Ministry speaking to The Times discussed the enormous operation undertaken by the British Army and partners over the past two years to train thousands of new Ukrainian soldiers. By the government’s own reckoning: “More than 30,000 ordinary Ukrainian men and women have trained to become soldiers under the largest military training programme of its kind on British soil since the Second World War.”
As enormous as this effort has been, there is clearly a position of thought within the Army that re-learning how to turn tens of thousands of civilians who likely never thought of joining the military before into combat-ready soldiers in a hurry may just be the prelude to a later, larger effort. The Ministry source is reported to have said the Army has been taking away “useful lessons” from the experience in how to build a future “citizen army” — a wartime conscript force, in other words — quickly.
SALISBURY, ENGLAND – FEBRUARY 23: Ukrainian soldiers march through the training area after the service, on February 23, 2023 near Salisbury, England. Ahead of tomorrow’s anniversary of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, hundreds of soldiers from the Armed Forces of Ukraine and their UK instructors come together to remember those who have lost their lives in the war on Ukraine. (Photo by Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images)
They said: “We are observing that a lot of what we are doing could act as a mission rehearsal for generating our own second echelon”.
All of this underlines the extraordinary way that top military figures and the government of the day are starting to row in public over the state taking a more confrontational stance against Russia while also starving the armed forces of investment. While the Conservatives insist they are putting fresh money into the forces, it has not been enough to stop manpower levels from dwindling to historic lows and constant talk of further cuts to the fleet over a lack of sailors to put ships to sea.
The Times reports a vignette of this barely-disguised fight between politics and military over the speech by a top General which sparked this talk of conscription this week. Elements of Sir Patrick Sanders’ keynote address to a military conference on Wednesday were briefed to a newspaper in advance, revealing he would talk about the perilously small size of the army and the need to prepare to rapidly grow it in case of war, as was achieved with volunteers and then conscripts in the First and Second World Wars.
As related by the Times, media outlets which attempted to get credentials to listen to the speech were refused, and the Sky News defence correspondent has claimed television cameras were barred from recording the remarks. It was reported that: “several media outlets who asked to attend the event were refused access. It is understood that No 10 then tried to prevent journalists from getting hold of Sanders’s speech, even after details of it had leaked” and this follows other extraordinary instances of top officers being prevented from talking to the media.
There is a lot of language in common between General Sanders’ headline-making speech and the Ministry of Defence insider briefing apparently at odds with the government, both talking of a “second echelon” and euphemistically, perhaps, of a “citizen army”.
The second echelon talk, along with General Sanders’ comments on a strategic reserve, underlines the Army’s apparent preoccupation with the Haldane reforms from 1906. The remaking of the Army by then-Secretary of State for War R. B. Haldane to incorporate lessons learnt from the Boer War left the United Kingdom in a far stronger position to fight the then-unanticipated First World War in 1914.
Indeed, Sanders has namechecked Haldane in the recent past and may perceive himself as being at the same moment, in a position to implement lessons from the Ukraine War ready for what has been said to be “coming over the horizon”. In the parlance of echelons, the first is the regular army ready to deploy at a moment’s notice, and the second is a force that can be generated at some notice from reserves and the public.
Making clear he believes the second echelon that would be called to fight against what he namechecked as a “Russian threat” would include called-up civilians, Sanders said this week: “We need an Army designed to expand rapidly to enable the first echelon, resource the second echelon and train and equip the citizen army that must follow… We will not be immune and as the pre-war generation we must similarly prepare – and that is a whole-of-nation undertaking.
“Ukraine brutally illustrates that regular armies start wars; citizen armies win them.”