Half of Britons ‘would not fight for their country under any circumstances today'
But as the nation prepares to mark 80 years since the end of the Second World War, a survey has revealed that almost half of all Britons would not be prepared to fight for their country today.
A staggering 48 per cent of those polled said there would be 'no circumstances' in which they would be willing to take up arms and go to war.
Pollsters Ipsos surveyed more than 1,000 adults and found that just 35 per cent – roughly one in three – said they would be ready to fight, while 17 per cent said they did not know. They found men (49 per cent) were more willing to go to war than women (21 per cent), with adults aged 18 to 34 most likely to volunteer for action (42 per cent).
However, 35 to 54-year-olds were the least willing to step up (28 per cent), with more than half of that age demographic saying there would be no circumstances in which they would serve.
Of the four biggest political parties, Reform UK voters were the most likely to fight, with Lib Dem supporters most likely to say no, according to the data.
Former Army officer Richard Gill, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan during a 15-year career, said: 'The fact that so many would refuse to fight for Britain is a symptom of a deeper national malaise. We've stopped teaching pride in our country, its history, and its values.
'A nation unsure of itself cannot expect its people to defend it. That must change.'
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The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘An unjust transition'? Teesside locals divided over net zero after deindustrialisation
'We're basically going through a deindustrialisation of the country at the moment and I think we're losing a lot of jobs,' says John Mac, over a pot of tea in a bustling Caffè Nero in the centre of Stockton-on-Tees. The local candidate for Reform UK worked for years at the Billingham plant of Imperial Chemical Industries's (ICI), before taking voluntary redundancy in the 1990s. Having witnessed decades of industrial decline on Teesside first-hand, including the dismantling of the once-mighty industrial behemoth, Nigel Farage's pivot to court the working class is speaking Mac's language. The Reform leader is targeting voters in post-industrial communities across Britain, outlined in a Guardian series showing how Farage views the 'next Brexit' as reversing net zero to create a manufacturing renaissance. This, the third in the series, looks at the future of another of Britain's industrial heartlands. If the latest opinion polls are anything to go by, four of the Tees Valley's constituencies would go to Reform if an election was held tomorrow – including for Mac in Stockton North. Labour – which now controls six of the seats – is at pains not to allow a repeat of 2019, when its so-called red wall heartlands fell to the Tories, with many places – including on Teesside – turning blue for the first time. Wednesday is market day in the town on the north bank of the Tees and Mac would usually be handing out leaflets to passersby. Many people are frustrated with the cost of living, lack of opportunities for young people, and immigration, he says. 'They just think Labour don't represent the working class any more,' Mac says. His uncle, Maurice Foley, was a trade unionist and Labour MP in the 1960s who left parliament in 1973 to become the deputy director general for development at the European Commission. Ironically, Mac says it was Brexit that turned him to Reform. Stockton and the wider Teesside area has higher than national average rates of unemployment, poverty and low educational attainment – trailing the rest of Britain in no small part as the legacy of a de-industrial revolution. Once described by William Gladstone as an 'infant Hercules', a hotbed of steel making, shipbuilding and chemicals, Teesside has suffered waves of job losses in the past half century amid Britain's broader industrial decline. 'It was central to British industrial capitalism, as a relatively prosperous booming place. The fall from grace has been huge,' says Luke Telford, an academic at York university and author on Brexit and industrial decline. 'Deindustrialisation acts as the economic backdrop to a lot of the problems, combined with the lack of an alternative. It has been an unjust transition, without really a plan in place. 'It gives rise to this sense that nobody listens to us, nobody really cares, we're just left to languish. And politicians aren't doing anything about it. Clearly Farage and his political strategists are learning the lessons from where that form of populism has gathered pace.' In the 1970s, Teesside was the third biggest contributor to the British economy behind London and Aberdeen. ICI employed more than 30,000 workers at its peak across two sites on either side of the Tees, at Billingham and Wilton; there were thousands more welders, electricians and other trades in the local supply chain, pumping money around the local economy. However, the oil crises, galloping inflation and soaring interest rates of the 1970s, followed by Margaret Thatcher's drive to reshape the UK to focus on services, while crushing the trade unions, hit the local area hard. Unemployment on Teesside exploded to more than a quarter, with a peak of up to 40% in central Middlesbrough. Almost 40 years ago, Thatcher took a now famous 'walk in the wilderness' through the barren landscape of the former Head Wrightson steelworks to highlight how her government would regenerate British industry. Jobs were created, but the Teesside Development Corporation she established to regenerate the area was wound up amid controversy in the late 1990s with vast unpayable debts. The latest wave of deindustrialisation – amid pressure from global competition and all too-familiar lack of government support – came in 2015 with the closure of Redcar's steelworks a little further down the river, ending 170 years of steelmaking on Teesside. Telford grew up on Teesside and still lives locally. His uncle was among the 2,000 steelworkers who lost their jobs. He drives through Middlesbrough on Friday nights to play football with his brother, and says passing the demolished works and empty buildings has parallels with the US rust belt. 'One of them is a call centre which is shut. The tallest building in Middlesbrough, standing empty. It symbolises the area's decline. Call centres were regarded as this new globalised service industry that was going to replace the relatively well-paid industrial jobs. But obviously that's not how it turned out.' But the story of Teesside's economic troubles is not uniform. 'We need to talk about the upside,' says Tania Cooper, the managing director of Steel Benders, a metal-bashing firm operating on the banks of the Tees in the shadow of Middlesbrough football club's Riverside stadium. The business owner sees burgeoning opportunities for economic growth, if regional leaders and central government get things right. While Teesside has some of the most deprived neighbourhoods in the country, there are also dozens of affluent villages and market towns also dotted about the picturesque spot underneath the Cleveland hills. 'It's not all doom and gloom. It's not grim up north, I wouldn't want to live anywhere else,' Cooper says. Although the Conservatives were booted out of parliamentary seats here in 2019, having been seen to have reneged on their promises of levelling up, many locals are still supportive of the Tees Valley's Tory mayor, Ben Houchen. The mayor's assessment of his own party's failings is frank. 'What's happening with Reform at the minute is like Brexit 2.0. 'People feel like the system isn't working for them. The Conservatives let them down, despite them putting their faith in them. Labour have been a huge disappointment, and so people are looking at voting for Reform in the same way that lots of people around here voted leave: because they feel disenfranchised.' Houchen says his continuing presence as the only Conservative mayor in Britain, among a sea of Labour regional leaders, is down to his activism, including securing a freeport from the last government, funding local regeneration projects and taking stakes in assets such as Teesside International Airport. However, his leadership has not been without controversy. Deals done at the Teesworks regeneration site and freeport have involved local business people who donated to the mayor. While an independent review found no evidence to support allegations of corruption or illegality, it warned the project was excessively secretive and could not ensure public money was being well spent. Still, many local business leaders point to the project as a galvanising force for attracting investment; alongside central government prioritising the development of green jobs in the area. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion 'People definitely connect with that past narrative about the area. They feel it, they're proud of it, and they want it to continue. If that means net zero Teesworks and green energy: so be it, great,' says Kiran Fothergill, a former Tory candidate in Middlesbrough, and the sixth-generation director of Pickerings Lifts, one of Teesside's oldest manufacturers, based in Stockton. There are hopes that offshore wind will be big business, including the construction of a £900m monopile manufacturing facility by South Korea's SeAH Wind that will be the world's largest. The government is investing heavily in a £4bn carbon capture and storage project alongside BP and Equinor, aiming to create 2,000 jobs. That many of the opportunities rely on a net zero transition ought to make campaigning tough for Reform, given Farage's pledge to cancel the central plank of government policy. 'I know people are saying they're being replaced by jobs in the green industry, solar and the windfarms, but for every job there, we're losing more, probably in the typical industrial sectors,' Mac says. His opponent, Chris McDonald, the Labour MP for Stockton North, like Mac, is a former engineer. Labour is making good progress on bringing investment to Teesside, he says, while Reform's anti-net zero agenda would stop things dead. 'They'll take all that investment away, people know that. Reform saying they will scrap all these things is such a disaster. It will put investors off,' he says. Despite Farage's attempts to position himself as a tribune of the working class, McDonald says Reform's priorities are anywhere but – highlighted by the party's opposition to Labour's workers' rights bill, which will strengthen access to maternity pay, sick pay, and banning exploitative zero-hours contracts. 'People in my area – a working-class area, with working people – they know how important those protections are and they know Reform are against them,' he says. Several of Teesside's heaviest carbon emitters and industrial businesses are in danger of closing down operations before the new green jobs arrive, amid sky-high energy and carbon costs. Britain has among the highest industrial electricity costs in the world, while gas prices have more than doubled since 2021. There are fears hundreds of jobs could be lost at the Saudi chemical firm Sabic's Olefins 6 plant – known as 'the cracker' – at Wilton, after the company paused a multimillion-pound upgrade project, amid spiralling costs and concerns about high energy prices. CF Industries, a US company that took on ICI's Billingham fertiliser plant, closed its ammonia plant at the site two years ago with the loss of almost 40 jobs, blaming high energy costs. Paul Peacock, a former production technician and Unite union rep at Sabic, says losing the jobs would be 'another nail in the chemical coffin' for Teesside. 'The area would go into further decline, you then get the sort of politics of Reform coming in promising everything – and it's easy to see why people would listen, when they have lost good, well-paid jobs.' Fazia Hussain-Brown, Unite's regional officer who represents workers at CF Fertilisers and Sabic, says that while locals 'want something different' and have been let down by some of Labour's policies, Reform is not the answer. 'Farage is a slogan man, he sends out slogans with no substance behind, because he's never had to justify it.' On the site of Wilton International, the miles of twisted metal pipes, chimneys and cooling towers on the south bank of the river, shows first-hand Britain's chequered industrial past, present and future all in one spot. As many as 25,000 people worked here half a century ago, on an 809-hectare (2,000-acre) site first opened by ICI in 1949 as the showpiece of industrial Britain, producing nylon, plastics and other human-made materials. The research hub and office block of the old ICI plant is now home to the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI), a government-backed social enterprise that supports scientists and companies with testing facilities to take their lab-based ideas into full-scale industrial production. Equipped with high-voltage power, bomb blast bays, steam pipes, and load-bearing beams and floors – first put in place by ICI in the 1970s before the decline and demise of the industrial giant – Wilton has plenty of infrastructure and land to help more industrial businesses grow. Graeme Cruickshank, CPI's chief technology officer, hopes the government's recently announced industrial strategy will provide more long-term strategic investment to support growing manufacturers in the low-carbon economy. Creating the jobs Teesside needs could depend on it. 'We always made stuff that was dirty, hard and heavy. It's not unrealistic for us to do it again.'
BBC News
2 hours ago
- BBC News
Conservatives win by-election after Reform councillor quit
The Conservatives have retaken a seat on Nottinghamshire County Council in a UK won in the Newark West division at the local elections in May, but the winning councillor stepped down after less than a Girling, who had represented the area for the Conservatives previously, reclaimed it on Thursday with a majority of just 8 votes."It's showing the Conservatives aren't dead. We're alive and kicking and we're going to work hard for our communities," he said. He added that the circumstances under which the by-election was called had "a bit of an impact.""We've knocked on a lot of doors and some of those that voted Reform [in May] were very angry at the fact he resigned," he said."It's cost about £25,000 to run this election, from a party that said they're going to save money."The Newark MP Robert Jenrick said he was "absolutely delighted" at the result."It's the first time anywhere in the country that the Conservative Party has won a seat off Reform, so I'm sure the eyes of the country will be on Newark once again," he by-election went to a recount but there was no change in the full results were:Keith Girling (Conservative) - 680Caroline Hinds (Reform UK) - 672Paul Taylor (Labour) - 316Matthew Spoors (Green) - 190Rosemary Johnson Sabine (Liberal Democrats) - 90Andrew Leatherland (Social Democratic Party) - 11Turnout was 21.99%.The result does not change who is in control of the county council because Reform already had enough seats for a majority, with 41 of the 66 Conservatives are the next largest group and now have 18 seats, while Labour have Ashfield Independents, the Broxtowe Alliance and the Broxtowe Independent Group each have one won a rescheduled election in Mansfield last month, which had been rearranged after the death of a candidate.
BBC News
3 hours ago
- BBC News
Kent council bans transgender books in children's library section
A council has removed all transgender-related books from the children's sections of its libraries, its leader has a post on social media, Kent County Council leader Linden Kemkaran said the books were to be removed with immediate effect in a "victory for common sense in Kent".Paul Webb, Reform UK's communities portfolio holder who oversees libraries, said the move came after a "concerned member of the public" contacted Liberal Democrat leader of the opposition, Antony Hook, said: "It is bizarre that the leader of the council is making announcements on social media, rather than to the council." It is unknown how many books are to be removed or how the council will classify transgender-related authority runs 99 community libraries and five mobile library vans. Defending the decision, Webb said: "In our society, children are quite rightly and properly protected from items and actions that could cause them harm – for example alcohol, cigarettes and gambling."My fellow Reform members and I believe that our young people should be protected from exposure to potentially harmful ideologies and beliefs such as those held by the trans lobbyists."When the BBC asked if Reform UK had carried out an assessment to understand the impact of removing the books, Webb said: "As far as impact assessments are concerned, I would have thought that question should have been asked before these books were placed in the children's section to begin with."Ms Kemkaran added: "Telling children they're in the wrong body is wrong and simply unacceptable." Hook said he had written to the head of Kent library services to ask for an update on what books were to be said: "The announcement made by Ms Kemkaran is vague. She does not specify what books she is referring to. This needs to be properly explained."Meanwhile, Labour MP for Chatham and Aylesford Tristian Osbourne has called the decision "unedifying gender baiting of the LGBT community".
