IT’S COME TO THIS: “Patriots should not fight for the British state,” says a columnist…in the London Telegraph?!
Talk of war is everywhere. Last week Mark Rutte, Nato’s secretary general, warned that the West must be prepared “for the scale of war our grandparents or great-grandparents endured” and that Nato is “Russia’s next target”. Then Sir Richard Knighton, the chief of the defence staff, said that the global situation is the most “dangerous I have known”, before describing a “new era for defence” which “doesn’t just mean our military and government stepping up… it means our whole nation stepping up”.
But is this realistic? Will the Britons of 2025 rise to the call as we did in 1914 or 1939? Polling suggests not. According to an Ipsos poll in June, almost half of us “say there are no circumstances” in which we “would be willing to take up arms for Britain”, with 39 per cent of men saying they would never fight for this country, and only 42 per cent of 18-34 year olds saying there are circumstances in which they would fight.
Some of those refusing are Leftists, but an increasing number of those on the Right, especially the young, believe that to obey the British state is to act against the interests of the British people.
If only there was a military role that many young conservative British men would flock to serve:
If the military put out a call for young Englishmen to defend the Channel from “asylum” arrivals, they would get a flood of volunteers
The core issue is the chasm between what the state perceives to be British interests, and how the British themselves view that question https://t.co/4e9N2gxuoj
— Mary Harrington (@moveincircles) December 19, 2025