29 Jan Britain needs to massively increase number of military reservists, says David Davis
THE UK should massively boost the number of military reservists instead of introducing conscription to prepare for possible future military conflicts, according to former Cabinet minister David Davis.
He told GB News: “Sweden has just re-instated a form of conscription, social service and or conscription. Switzerland has got conscription, both neutral nations by the way, up until recently anyway.
“Switzerland had had a survey last year in which 73% of their population said it wants to continue with conscription, so it gives you a measure.
“But what we have to do is find another way of improving our ability to defend ourselves and for me that means probably massively increasing, like ten times, the number of reservists.”
In a discussion with Andrew Pierce and Bev Turner, he continued: “People at home perhaps should read the history of the First World War, which started with one man being assassinated.
“Even a year before, British statesmen were saying, ‘well, if there is a war we don’t need to get involved’. Well, look what happened. One of the worst wars ever.”
He added: “Iran basically wants more instability in the Middle East, because they want to increase the arc of Shia [Muslim] domination.
“Bluntly, we fed into that with the Iraq war, made it easier and they’re still turning this wheel to try and make more and more instability.
“That’s got all sorts of dangerous knock-on effects in the election year – how are the Americans going to respond to this sort of thing? Are they going to dial it up, are they going to hit back? In which case, I can see it going up and up.”
