Verdicts · Defence
What the UK thinks about defence
Settled referendums
46
since Jun 2026
Votes cast
5,822
all time, on defence
This week
1,139
votes · 2 referendums settled
Written opinions
208
all time, left by voters
This week's opinion highlightThe most respected opinion this week
“NO As an ex soldier one thing most British soldiers liked about HMF was we knew every soldier stood next to us in the line was there because they wanted to be. Whereas with some of the other European armies, the profession element could never be sure about the conscrpts dedication! I suspect the same is true of today service folk”
JustFactsNotBeliefs, debating No on “Should a form of national service be introduced to help fix a divided nation?” · read the thread →
12
Respects
Most respected on defence this week
- 1.JustFactsNotBeliefs12 respects
- 2.BenL6 respects
- 3.DavidRadley4 respects
- 4.TeaSpoonFairy3 respects
- 5.AlexH3 respects
Who answered this week
The 711 placed voters lean Centre Right overall.
H. Left6%
Left20%
C. Left8%
Centre7%
C. Right10%
Right42%
H. Right8%
Regions this week
South EastC. Right
ScotlandCentre
LondonCentre
South WestC. Right
North WestC. Right
East of EnglandC. Right
YorkshireCentre
North EastC. Right
West MidlandsC. Right
East MidlandsCentre
Northern IrelandRight
WalesC. Right
Votes each week
1,139so far this week
26427 Jul
3033 Aug
63410 Aug
53917 Aug
72024 Aug
1,13931 Aug
All-time defence highlights
Biggest landslide
YES 92%
Should the UK government increase defence spending to 3% of GDP?
92% of 36 votes went the same way.
Closest result
50 / 50
Should the UK build hybrid warships instead of new destroyers?
Dead level — an exact tie.
Most debated
NO 72%
Is delaying a firm date for 3% defence spending the right choice?
25 written opinions.
This week
2 settled · 1,139 votes
0% NO
Majority against
YES 28%
567 votes
0 skipped
by @HonestCompass58⏱ Ended 3 Sept 2026
Is delaying a firm date for 3% defence spending the right choice?
The verdict
“Threats to our country and the West in general are increasing NOW” was the room’s impatient refrain; No won decisively, rejecting delay rather than the need for a review.
0% NO
Majority against
YES 42%
572 votes
0 skipped
by @DavidRadley⏱ Ended 2 Sept 2026
Should a form of national service be introduced to help fix a divided nation?
The verdict
The proposed cure for division met a room wary of coercion: No won, while a sharp No voice called compulsory service “cohesion in uniform”.
Last week
2 settled · 720 votes
0% NO
Majority against
YES 38%
429 votes
0 skipped
by @atc1249⏱ Ended 28 Aug 2026
In the event of an armed conflict and assuming you are physically able, would you voluntarily join the UK military?
The verdict
“Being shipped overseas for another elective, disastrous foreign intervention? Absolutely not” became the floor’s sharpest line: No won by nearly two to one, with voters separating defence of home from wars chosen by governments.
0% NO
Majority against
YES 36%
291 votes
0 skipped
by @atc1249⏱ Ended 23 Aug 2026
Can the UK still recruit, retain and defend itself militarily if national unity has weakened?
The verdict
“Soldiers fight for their fellow soldiers...” was the losing side’s answer to a chamber that gave No a clear two-to-one verdict.
Every defence verdict
- NO 72%Is delaying a firm date for 3% defence spending the right choice?“Threats to our country and the West in general are increasing NOW” was the room’s impatient refrain; No won decisively, rejecting delay rather than the need for a review.
- NO 58%Should a form of national service be introduced to help fix a divided nation?The proposed cure for division met a room wary of coercion: No won, while a sharp No voice called compulsory service “cohesion in uniform”.
- NO 62%In the event of an armed conflict and assuming you are physically able, would you voluntarily join the UK military?“Being shipped overseas for another elective, disastrous foreign intervention? Absolutely not” became the floor’s sharpest line: No won by nearly two to one, with voters separating defence of home from wars chosen by governments.
- NO 64%Can the UK still recruit, retain and defend itself militarily if national unity has weakened?“Soldiers fight for their fellow soldiers...” was the losing side’s answer to a chamber that gave No a clear two-to-one verdict.
- YES 57%Should the UK send Ukraine more drones to strike targets inside Russia?Ukraine’s supporters carried the room by a clear margin, with the floor’s strongest case warning that “If Ukraine fails Russia will move further into Europe.”
- NO 67%Should the UK invest more in climate adaptation than in increasing military spending to 3% of GDP?Armed defence beat climate adaptation in a room whose sharpest line was not about money but premise: “I reject the framing of "climate threat".”
- YES 56%Should the UK armed forces be deployed to protect national borders and assist checks at airports & coach, railway hubs?Voters here chose deployment, but the sharpest No line said service personnel join “to protect our country, not to be security guards” — a winning decision with its best argument on the other side.
- YES 73%Should the United Kingdom increase spending on defence of the realm?“Si vis pacem, para bellum” captured the chamber’s mood: Yes carried the question by more than two to one, with every posted argument on the winning side and none from No.
- YES 58%Should the UK independently seize frozen Russian state assets to fund support for Ukraine?“Russia might punish us but it's doing that anyway” was the room’s sharpest line: voters chose independent seizure, but the most-respected case argued for restraint.
- YES 69%Should the UK develop an indigenous submarine nuclear missile delivery system independent of the USA?The winning Yes case was bluntly practical — “We should spend the billions stopping the actual invasion happening right now.” Yes won by more than two to one, even as the debate repeatedly widened from an indigenous missile system to nuclear weapons themselves.
- YES 55%Does Russia's missile attack on Kyiv demand stronger UK support for Ukraine?A modest majority backed more support for Kyiv, but the sharper writing came from the side that lost: five separate No arguments, against just two from Yes, meaning those who won the vote barely bothered to make the case.
- YES 68%Would launching the biggest peacetime rearmament make Britain safer?Two to one, the chamber backed the biggest peacetime rearmament in Britain's history — but the case that carried most respect wasn't really about Moscow or Beijing at all, it was about the border.
- NO 51%Should we reintroduce national service?A question that should have produced a rout instead produced a virtual coin toss, with the chamber splitting 67 to 65 against reintroducing national service — a margin of two votes that leaves the policy dead but the argument very much alive.
- YES 63%Should the Ministry of Defence reimburse early years childcare costs for service families in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?The chamber's clearest fault line here wasn't age but gender, with men backing the MoD's plan to iron out childcare disparities across the union while women split the other way, a reminder that reimbursement schemes often look tidier on the balance sheet than they do to the people actually managing the childcare.
- YES 64%Should the UK recast its fiscal rules to fund higher defence spending?The chamber backed rewriting the fiscal rules to bankroll rearmament, with yes carrying nearly two to one, but the coalition behind it inverts the usual generational script: it was the youngest voters, not the oldest, who recoiled from loosening the purse strings for tanks and missiles.
- YES 85%If Argentina were to invade the Falkland Islands again, would you support the use of force to recapture them?On a question that leaves little room for ambivalence, the chamber answered almost as one voice: recapturing the Falklands by force, should Argentina try again, drew backing from six in seven of those who voted, a rout rather than a debate.
- NO 84%Do the British armed forces have sufficient independent capability to defend the UK from major attack without NATO suppo?On a question meant to test faith in Britain's ability to go it alone, the chamber delivered something closer to a verdict on decline than a vote of confidence, with barely one in six willing to say the armed forces could defend the country without NATO behind them.
- YES 66%Should the UK continue producing artillery gun barrels in Britain for Ukraine?The chamber backed keeping the forges running for Kyiv by two to one, but that headline number papers over a gender split so stark it reframes the whole vote: men here backed British-made barrels for Ukraine by three to one, while women broke decisively against, on a question ostensibly about industrial capacity rather than the war itself.
- YES 69%Should Bulgaria allow up to eight US tanker aircraft to be stationed at Bezmer military base?Bulgaria's voters here came down decisively for hosting the US tankers at Bezmer, but the two-to-one verdict masks a real fracture over how comfortable this country is playing forward base for someone else's war — not everyone in the chamber saw sovereignty and NATO utility as pointing the same way.
- YES 86%Should Britain take back full control of its nuclear deterrent?Sovereignty proved a near-unifying instinct: across nearly every age band voters backed reclaiming full control of the deterrent from its US dependencies, with only the youngest cohort showing real hesitation, as the chamber backed the move by six to one.
Show all 46 verdicts ↓
- YES 72%Should the government spend an extra £15bn on defence from 2026 to 2030?The generational split tells the real story here: it was the middle-aged and older who backed the £15bn uplift most firmly, while the youngest voters in the chamber were the only group to reject it outright, a reversal of the usual pattern on defence spending.
- YES 63%Should the forces stay out of pride month?The chamber came down for keeping the military out of Pride marches, but the age pattern ran backwards from the usual culture-war script: it was the youngest voters who wanted uniforms in the parade, and the middle-aged and older who wanted the forces to stand apart.
- YES 61%Should the UK further develop its nuclear capability for defence?Voters here backed further nuclear investment by a solid but not overwhelming margin, with the sharpest resistance coming not from the young but from the oldest cohort in the chamber, who alone tipped against it.
- YES 90%Should the UK defence budget be judged by military readiness and capacity rather than just spending levels?Britain's online defence hawks reached for consensus rarely seen on this platform, with nine in ten voters here agreeing that hardware and readiness matter more than headline spending figures.
- YES 83%Should Parliament approve the designation of Iran's IRGC and HAYI as terror groups?This was less a debate than a near-consensus with one visible fault line: the 25-34s were the only age group to split at all, five of them voting no while every other generation from teenagers to pensioners lined up almost solidly behind designating the IRGC and HAYI as terror groups.
- YES 63%Would hitting 3.5% GDP on defence justify cuts elsewhere in public spending?Nearly two to one for guns before butter, but the enthusiasm belonged almost entirely to the over-25s: the youngest voters, who inherit both the tax bill and the welfare state being weighed against it, were the only age group to say no.
- YES 74%Should the UK implement the 2025 strategic defence review's warfighting readiness reforms?The one age band that broke the other way was 35-44 — the only cohort to reject warfighting readiness reforms, and by nearly two to one, while the rest of the chamber backed them three to one.
- YES 68%Should the Defence Investment Plan prioritise turning spending into measurable military capacity over setting higher GDP percentage targets?The instinct here was managerial, not martial: voters on refnation preferred converting cash into capability over chasing a bigger GDP number, carrying the question two to one even as men split almost down the middle on it.
- YES 68%Would higher NATO defence spending demands from Trump make Britain safer?The chamber backed Trump's demand for a sharper NATO spending push by two to one, but the enthusiasm rose steadily with age — a split that reads less like partisanship than like who remembers what deterrence used to cost.
- YES 63%Should the forces stay out of pride month?On a question tailor-made for generational battle lines, it was the middle-aged who dug in hardest against Pride marches in uniform, while the youngest voters on the platform split clean down the middle — yes carried it 63-37.
- YES 72%Does the UK need greater parliamentary scrutiny of its defence spending plans?Even those most inclined to trust the government with the nuclear deterrent's price tag balked at doing so blind: nearly three in four voters here backed more parliamentary scrutiny of defence spending, with only the youngest voters evenly split.
- YES 76%Should the UK increase defence spending to meet NATO's new commitments?Consensus on hard power, but not quite uniform: the over-55s backed higher defence spending to a person, while the 45-54s were the only age group to recoil from it, splitting three to one against.
- YES 51%Should the UK government issue war bonds to fund its £300bn defence spending commitment by 2030?A war bonds scheme for Britain's rearmament squeaked through by a single vote, the kind of margin that says the country hasn't made up its mind so much as split it clean down the middle.
- YES 92%Should the UK government increase defence spending to 3% of GDP?A near-unanimous 92% backed pushing defence spending to 3% of GDP, with every dissenting vote clustered among the youngest cohort on the platform.
- NO 85%Should the UK reduce its defence spending to fund more on employment, welfare and growth?A rout: voters here rejected trading defence spending for welfare and growth by 29 votes to 5, an 85-point-plus margin that masks a sharp gender split beneath it.
- YES 74%Should the UK be focusing more on defence than welfare?Voters here backed defence over welfare by a decisive 74% to 26%, with the clearest consensus coming from the 55-64 bracket, who went unanimously for defence, 9 votes to nil.
- YES 63%Should the government spend an extra £15bn on defence from 2026 to 2030?Voters backed the extra £15bn for defence by a clear 26-point margin, but support rose steadily with age — from an even split among 25-34s to four-in-five approval among over-55s.
- YES 62%Should the UK adopt a Hybrid Navy model under the 2026 Defence Investment Plan?Yes to a Hybrid Navy carried 62-38, but that headline hides a chamber split almost clean in half by demography: men backed it 3 to 1, women rejected it 4 to 1.
- YES 58%Would Keir Starmer's defence spending plan leave a £5bn shortfall for his successor?A narrow-ish win for Yes masks a sharp fracture: every under-25 who voted said no, while men backed the shortfall claim by more than two to one and women split against it.
- YES 63%Should the UK commit £8.6 billion to the Global Combat Air Programme?Yes to GCAP carried the chamber 12-7, a 26-point margin built on a thin 19 votes — not a landslide so much as a modest working majority for the fighter jet money.
- YES 76%Should UK defence spending rise to nearly £80bn a year by 2029?Yes carried the chamber comfortably, 13 to 4, but with only 17 profiled voters this is a strong signal from a small room rather than a national verdict on rearmament.
- YES 53%Should the UK adopt the £13.5bn defence investment plan?A knife-edge yes, 10 votes to 9, on a plan two of the government's own ministers walked out over — hardly a ringing endorsement, and one age group broke against it entirely.
- TIEDShould the UK build hybrid warships instead of new destroyers?A dead heat: 15-15, the platform unable to choose between drones and destroyers. But bury the tie and there's a real fracture—25-34s broke hard against hybrid ships (36% yes) while 35-44s backed them two-to-one.
- YES 86%Should the next prime minister increase defence spending to meet the Moscow test?A landslide for higher defence spending, with 18 of 21 voters here backing the "Moscow test" — but the dissent that did surface clustered among younger women and 25-34s, not the retired.
- YES 54%Should the UK create a climate security taskforce?A climate security taskforce scraped through, 7 votes to 6, on a chamber too small to call anything but a coin toss with a distinct wobble.
- YES 63%Should the British Army buy 270 Toyota Hilux 4x4s for 11 Brigade?A modest procurement question produced a comfortable Yes, 17 votes to 10, but the chamber split cleanly down gender lines, with men backing the Hilux buy and women narrowly against.