UK needs Norway-style national service to fight rise of populism

LPI Head of Media & Communications Hubert Kucharski writes for the Financial Times

Leeds Policy Institute Head of Media & Communications Hubert Kucharski has had his letter based on previous research on why the UK needs national service published in the Financial Times. Hubert wrote:

"We must stop dealing with youth inactivity as a technocratic puzzle and start treating it as a crisis of social cohesion.

"If the state does not want to disenfranchise this generation further, it must harness this desire for community and stop treating work experience as a “nice-to-have”. To achieve this, the state must look beyond the unpopularity of this past proposal and introduce a mandatory year of national service for 16-year-olds, structured around professional development rather than combat.

“To make such a scheme a success, students should have a choice between a military stream — offering technical tracks in medical care, radio operations and engineering similar to the Norwegian model — and a civil service stream focused on public administration and logistics.”

You can read the full letter here.