MILITARY COUP
Youth wing defies leaders and makes ban on under-18s joining armed forces official party policy
THE SNP’s youth wing yesterday defied their leaders to make raising the military recruitment age to 18 party policy.
Rhiannon Spear, national convener of Young Scots for Independence, argued that joining up before 18 increases the risk of death in combat, post-traumatic stress disorder and alcohol abuse.
The move was voted through with a significant majority of party members in favour despite opponents of the change including defence spokesman Stewart McDonald MP.
The motion argued that organisations including the Church of Scotland want the minimum age to be increased to 18. It said an independent Scotland should adopt the policy and urged the UK Government to “work towards” it.
The UK is the only country in Europe that routinely recruits people aged under 18, with a minimum age of enlisting of 16.
Rising star Spear, a Glasgow councillor, accused the Ministry of Defence of deliberately targeting youngsters in low income households.
She added: “In August, when our young people were wracked with nerves waiting for their exam results, the MoD paid for targeted advertising on Twitter and Facebook, preying on 15, 16 and 17-year-olds at their most vulnerable time.”
Opponents of the change argued recruits aged less than 18 haven’t served in combat roles for a decade and it was inconsistent when another party policy states that the voting age be 16.
McDonald said he considered joining up after leaving school at 17 with one Higher and “that was my decision, it wasn’t anyone else’s”.
He said he was not defending the MoD but said the motion was too focused on age.
However his amendment, calling for the “active duty age” to be raised to 18, was rejected in favour of the YSI motion.
Glasgow North West MP Carol Monaghan, the party’s armed forces spokeswoman, said increasing the minimum age would deny opportunities to some youngsters. The former
teacher revealed she had a former pupil who claimed that joining the Army had prevented him ending up in Barlinnie prison in Glasgow.
Jack O’Neill, convener of the YSI in the north-east of Scotland, said the party risked “alienating thousands of young people across the country who simply believe that their future should be in their hands”.
But MSP Christina McKelvie said comparing the recruitment age to giving young people the vote was a “false equivalence”. She said putting a pencil in a young person’s hand to make an X was “nothing like” giving them a gun and teaching them how to use it.