The UK has no plans to reintroduce conscription. Ministers have been clear on that. But rising global tensions, a shrinking army and increasingly blunt warnings from abroad have dragged the once-unthinkable idea back into public discussion, along with a harder question: what would actually happen if people refused to serve?
Conscription has been used in Britain only twice in the past 126 years, during the two world wars. Yet fears of another major conflict have resurfaced as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine grinds on, Donald Trump’s administration rattles allies over Greenland and Iran, and senior figures in Moscow issue explicit nuclear threats towards Europe.
