Just 6% of people in the United Kingdom say they would volunteer to fight if the country came under invasion, according to an exclusive YouGov poll shared with Sky News. The finding points to a striking reluctance to take up arms in defence of the country, at a time when questions about Britain's military readiness are back at the centre of political debate. Alongside that small core of would-be volunteers, a further 14% of Britons said they would agree to serve if they were formally called up.
The survey also exposed outright resistance to military service among a significant share of the public. Some 17% of those questioned said they would refuse any order to defend their homeland, even in the event of an attack. A much larger group, 52%, said they would be ineligible to serve anyway because of their age or a disability, underlining how narrow the pool of potential recruits would be if the country ever needed to mobilise quickly.
Attitudes towards the likelihood of conflict were more divided. Almost one-third of respondents, 29%, said they believed it was likely that the UK would come under a full-scale military attack within the next decade. By contrast, a slim majority of 51% regarded such a scenario as unlikely, suggesting that most people still do not expect a direct assault on British soil despite a period of heightened international tension.
The poll also revealed an extraordinary lack of confidence in the ability of the military to keep the country safe should the worst happen. Some 53% of people said they were not confident that the armed forces were strong enough to defend the UK, while just over a third, 38%, said they were confident. That gap will make uncomfortable reading for defence planners who have been warning about pressures on personnel and equipment.
On the question of money, most respondents felt the government was spending too little on defence, with only 6% saying they thought the budget was too big and 17% believing it was about right. Yet there was no consensus among the more than 2,300 British people surveyed on where any extra money should come from. More than half said they opposed funding a larger defence budget either by raising taxes or by shifting spending away from public services.
The timing of the survey gave the results a sharp political edge. The polling was carried out after the publication of the new defence investment plan, which the previous government led by Keir Starmer failed to fund in full. That left a shortfall of around five billion pounds, a gap that his successor as prime minister, Andy Burnham, will now have to find a way to fill as he sets out his own approach to defence and security.
YouGov also put similar questions to people in Poland, Canada, France, Germany, the United States and Australia as part of the same research, asking each public what it regarded as the biggest global threat from a list of options. A direct military attack came out on top only in Poland. In Britain, Canada and France, respondents pointed to climate change as the greatest danger, while Germany identified mass migration, the United States chose political extremism and Australia named religious terrorism.