Britain’s got a problem, and it’s not the one the chattering classes are bleating about. It’s not climate change, pronouns, or gaslighting Netflix series probing what’s gone wrong with boys. No, the real crisis is a hole in the nation’s heart—a gaping wound where loyalty, pride, and (dare one say it) the willingness to defend this Sceptred Isle used to reside. The white working-class lads who once formed the backbone of Britain have had enough. Derided, scorned, and blamed for every ill under the sun, they’re no longer signing up to die for a country that’s made it clear it doesn’t want them. And who can blame them?
Former Defence Secretary Lord Hammond—hardly a rabble-rouser—sounded the alarm in The Telegraph earlier this month. “Young men are unprepared to fight for Britain,” he warned. He’s got a point. Back in 2015, a Gallup poll found just 27% of Brits would willingly take up arms for their country—one of the lowest figures in Europe. That was a decade ago, mind you. Today, you’d be lucky to find a lad from Bolton or Barnsley willing to take a bow for King and Country, let alone a bullet.
And why on earth should they? Thanks to decades of Critical Race Theory, feminist claptrap and the self-loathing taught in our schools, the white, working-class male has morphed into nothing short of a national punchbag. To Westminster liberals, they’re ‘toxic’ and ‘privileged’, forced to subsist on crumbling estates while resources are handed over to those with more exotic backgrounds and skin colours. To employers, they provide no commercial value in terms of woke credibility and are therefore passed over for promotion—or excluded entirely. To the authorities, they’re now the only demographic liable to feel the full force of the law.
If you think the multicultural brigade or the feminists are ready to step into the breach any time soon, think again. The military’s £8 million diversity drive (aimed at increasing the representation of ethnic minorities, women and those with disabilities, while also relaxing security vetting for overseas recruits) was an unmitigated disaster—resulting in a paltry ten female recruits starting basic training. Perhaps the sneering of top brass at white male recruits as ‘useless’ was unwise, particularly since Newsweek revealed there were “twice as many” British Muslims fighting for ISIS than serving in the UK Armed Forces.
Comrade Starmer may be itching to send the troops into Ukraine to prove his manliness—‘boots on the ground’ he says; ‘security guarantees.’ Good luck with that, Sir Keir, with the British Army shrunk to a measly 72,500 under Rishi Sunak’s watch; the smallest it’s been since the Napoleonic wars. Things are so bleak in fact, the PM may need to spend a little less time fussing over his wife’s wardrobe, and get his army fatigues dirty himself.
The future isn’t looking any better unfortunately, with the attitudes of Gen Z particularly disturbing. Twenty years ago, 80% of young Brits were proud of their country. Two decades on, and that number has halved. For those aged 18-27, 50% believe Britain is racist and stuck in the past, with just 11% suggesting they would fight for the nation in a war. The double-edged sword of a country revolted by its successful past and a white, working-class majority now persona non grata, is a recipe for a military which couldn’t defend a front lawn let alone a front line.
The shocking state of the UK Armed Forces is more than just a recruitment crisis—it’s a betrayal. For generations, the sons of England marched off to the battlefields of Flanders, Normandy and the Falklands, no questions asked. They didn’t need a focus group to tell them what patriotism meant. But patriotism is a two-way street, and those in command have not upheld their end of the bargain. The jobs have gone overseas, the factories closed, and the promise of a better life turned into food banks and zero-hours contracts. To add insult to injury, our boys were then told that they were the problem—‘too white,’ ‘too male,’ ‘too toxic’ to fit in with the soy latte-sipping London liberals.
So here we find ourselves, with a military on its knees and a government too busy navel-gazing to notice. Starmer’s sabre rattling in the direction of Ukraine might impress the Guardian editorial board, but its hollow bluster when the numbers simply aren’t there to back it up. I recall watching Christopher Nolan’s epic WWII film Dunkirk some years ago, and then reading the reviews suggesting it was ‘too white.’ No shit, Sherlock! But two can play that game.
Laying down your life is the ultimate sacrifice a man can make. Most will do so without a moment’s hesitation for their children and family. But for a country to merit such devotion, requires that such a country is worthy of fighting for. If Britain is no longer inspiring these emotions in its young men, we must ask ourselves why.
Feminists and liberal men rail against ‘toxic masculinity’ more than any other ‘societal ill,’ yet they are always the first to cower behind it when it’s the only line of defence. One wonders what they will do when the next call to arms is met with silence?
Frank Haviland is the author of Banalysis: The Lie Destroying the West, and writes a Substack here.
This piece was first published in The European Conservative, and is reproduced by kind permission.
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Yes, I am old, but I had read History, and in particular, the life of Churchill – two Bio’s of over 1000 pages – and, I hate saying this – but if there is ANY SIGN OF HOPE – not just the odd half a dozen or so commentators – then I can’t see it. I am an EX-SERVICEMAN. We, the Brits, are finished. A ripple is useless when you need a Tidal Wave.
Speaking as a toxic white working class bloke who kind of agrees with your sentiments all I can say is that I am going down fighting and as far as Starmer and the rest of the treacherous bastards they can all go screw themselves.
Bravo Zulu Bill! We the real Brits are not ‘finished’ we are merely cancelled by government edict, our traditional, hard won rights and freedoms frittered away by successive small people in government who choose to spend our money anywhere but here at home for the benefit of those citizens who produced the wealth. Look at the ones who are grown rich at our expense, the B’liars, Camerons, Heseltines, Johnsons and now Starmer. All proven liars thieves and scum.
”One wonders what they will do when the next call to arms is met with silence?”
It won’t be met with silence Frank … it will be met with a deafening roar of ‘Hell NO we won’t go!’ And I can’t say that I would blame them.
Two tier Kier is more interested in hugging the EU line of “defending Democracy” in Ukraine – despite that Country being under Martial Law and all political dissent oh and their Elections extinguished – because it gives him a back door opportunity to rejoin the EU. If he hands control of the Military and the Police to an EU “Army” then suddenly this Country has been made subservient to the EU. Handily the determined plot to undermine Brexit has already ensured that our Statute Book is still rammed full of EU Legislation.
Once the Country is back under EU control, then TTK is guaranteed to stay in power as look at the examples of the EU meddling in Elections.
Once I was willing to give my life for what this country stood for and like many underprivileged young men back in the fifties and sixties I ‘Signed the blank cheque’ at the age of 15 and did my ‘Eleven’ to escape the mundane daily existence.
Today those same young men would be classed as ‘privileged’ merely because of their skin colour and regardless of their lowly origins. So now I am only willing to give my life to defend my family from what this country has become as there is nothing about this country worth fighting for as the government trample roughshod over our rights and bend over backwards to empower those who have no right to be in this country.
Today I would tear the blank cheque into pieces and throw it in the rubbish where it belongs.
From the Conservative Woman
therealguyfaux
5 hours ago
There’s a scene in the film version of All Quiet On The Western Front where the protagonist (Paul Baumer), a recent secondary school graduate who along with his mates was exhorted to fight for Kaiser and Country and who signed up, is on leave and visits his old school. One of the masters asks him to discuss what being a soldier is like, whereupon the soldier gives an accurate description of the trenches. He is denounced as defeatist, but retorts that he just wanted them to know what was coming, even if it is necessary to fight this war, and he tells the master to the effect of “Isn’t it funny how the men who are telling us to fight never seem to want to do any of it themselves?”
I didn’t know that ‘Briton’ was a synonym for ‘English.’ This author is blinkered in that he cannot see how Kitchener’s plea applied to the Scots, Irish and Welsh as well as to the English. This unconcious bias is one of the main accelerants of the demise of Britain that can be laid at the door of TB: Devolution was a Blair tactic, the classic infantry manoeuvre of divide and conquer.
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Chuck him out, the brute!”
But it’s “Saviour of ‘is country,” when the guns begin to shoot. (Kipling, 1890)
So, it’s all been before!
For decades it was true that if I’d seen a policeman being assaulted I’d have gone to his help. Automatically. Without a second thought.
Now: not bloody likely. All thanks to people like Sir Greased Piglet – human rights lawyers and suchlike creatures. If the police can’t expect help from a civilised chap like me who can they expect help from?
No worthwhile police, no army, preposterous prisons – the State isn’t doing its key job.
100% The state’s only remit should be to protect CITIZENS from fraud and force. I too would no longer rush to help our ‘Wonderful Boys In Blue’ (sic)
To be controversial (sorry) in some ways this is surely a sign of society maturing. Men are no longer content to put up with things that women equally won’t. The old class ridden deference and ‘homes fit for heroes’, dulcie et decorum est pro patri mori (spelled wrongly no doubt as I didn’t have Latin at my Yorkshire Comprehensive school) lies are clearly exposed as cynical manipulation.
Patriots are no longer willing to fight wars abroad for their ‘betters’ BUT many still will fight on their home turf, but there is as yet no one coordinating the fightback for our future free of Islam, illegals, the idle, fake disabilities, woke, climate emergency lies, fake national shame etc. etc.