Fact check: Former defence minister voiced support for national service plan

The Labour Party has claimed that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s proposal to introduce national service for 18-year-olds “has been criticised by his own MPs, including the former defence secretary”.

Evaluation

The claim that a “former defence secretary” has criticised the plan is based on part of a social media post written by another user which Ben Wallace, who led the Ministry of Defence between 2019 and 2023, shared to his followers on X, formerly Twitter.

The post contained a view that national service may not go ahead in the UK, but was a “mainstream idea in many parts of Europe”.

In Labour’s video, the second part of the tweet was blurred out.

Shortly after sharing the post on X, Mr Wallace wrote his own tweet in favour of the policy.

The facts

On May 26, a social media user posted on X saying: “National service won’t happen, of course, and the policy is aimed by the Tories at persuading former Tory and Reform voters to listen. But it is fascinating to see such a mainstream northern European idea mocked. Is law in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Baltic States.”

This was reposted by Mr Wallace and that was seized upon by Labour for its video, but with the second sentence blurred out and a caption suggesting this was a criticism of the Conservatives’ proposal.

The former minister’s subsequent post made a similar point to the opinion he had shared: “National Service is perfectly normal in most of Northern Europe. Young people are better for it.”

Mr Wallace told the PA news agency that by blurring out the second part of the repost, Labour had “twisted words”.

“When Labour resort to twisting words it demonstrates that they’ve nothing to say,” he added.

Links

Labour Party’s post on X (archived post and video)

UK Parliament – Ben Wallace (archived)

Ben Wallace’s X feed (archived)

Ben Wallace’s tweet in support of national service (archived)