Only 6 per cent of Brits would volunteer to fight off invasion, poll reveals

Britons getting mogged by a survey

The new survey by YouGov found that only 6% of people in the UK would volunteer to fight in the face of an imminent invasion.

A further 14% of Britons would agree to serve if called up, but 17% said they refuse any order to defend their homeland.

On the other hand, a whopping 52% of the people polled said they would be ineligible because of their age or disability.

How likely the UK is to come under direct attack

As for the chances of war, the YouGov survey shared with Sky News that one third of people (29%) said that they believe it’s likely the UK will come under a full scale military attack within the next decade.

However, the majority of respondents (51%) found such a threat unlikely.

The poll further exposed an extraordinary lack of confidence in the armed forces to keep the UK safe, should the worst happen.

The majority of the people (53%) said that they were not confident that the armed forces are strong enough to defend Britain, while just over one third (38%) said that they trusted the British military.

People in the United Kingdom have another worry in mind

YouGov also polled people in Poland, Canada, France, Germany, the US and Australia as part of its survey.

People from these countries were asked what they regard as the biggest threat from a list of options, which included a military attack.

A military attack, the survey revealed, is what worries people most in Poland, as in the Britain, Canada and France, the biggest threat is considered climate change.

Germany said it was mass migration while in the US the main worry is political extremism, the survey revealed.

Who could avoid army conscription if the UK goes to war

No need to worry just yet, as the government has so far ruled out the possibility of national service or conscription.

That said, it has been widely argued by experts that if tensions were to escalate and Britain found themselves in a war, the armed forces would need to enforce conscription to bolster their ranks.

People employed across certain industries vital to keeping the country running would be exempt from the draft and it is likely the same rules would apply if WW3 was to break out.

The previous government's strategy claimed that the UK must “actively prepare” for war on homeland territory.

The last conscription in the UK was more than eight decades ago during World War 2 and, just like then, certain call-up exemptions would occur if another global war was to break out.

Former British Military Intelligence Colonel Philip Ingram MBE previously told JOE the country is a long way from bringing back mandatory military service.

He told JOE that “there would have to be a massive deterioration in the geopolitical environment across the world [for us to bring in conscription]”.