From the vast nuclear submarine halls of Barrow-in-Furness to the aerospace assembly lines of Lancashire and the windswept barracks of Catterick Garrison, national defence has never been an abstract Westminster talking point for those of us in the North. For generations, Northern towns and cities have built Britain’s deterrent and supplied (often because of poverty and a lack of alternative employment) a disproportionate share of the personnel who crew, fly, and deploy it.
Yet a major new report from the National Centre for Social Research (BSA: A more dangerous world, authored by King’s College London foreign policy researcher Sophia Gaston) uncovers a profound tension at the heart of British security. Drawing on longitudinal British Social Attitudes (BSA) data alongside NatCen Opinion Panel polling up to spring 2026, the study shows that while the British public has decisively abandoned its post-Cold War complacency, a deep fault line has opened between older voters demanding stronger defences and the younger generation required to staff them. There's much more to this than stockpiling soup and oatmilk.
For the first time in four decades of BSA polling, a clear majority of Britons - 56% - want the government to spend more on defence, compared with just 27% who favour keeping budgets steady and 17% who want cuts. That shift reflects a public psyche rattled by converging global crises, from Russia’s grinding war of attrition in Ukraine and it's naval assets relentless circling of the British Isles, to escalating conflict in the Middle East.
Today, 89% of Britons view Russia as a serious threat to world peace, more than double the 41% recorded in 1994. Concern over China has climbed from 28% two decades ago to 62%, while 78% view Israel and 75% view Iran as serious threats. On average, the British public now regards nearly five of the seven nations tracked in the survey as serious threats to global stability.
Most startling, however, is the collapse in public confidence toward Britain’s foremost security ally. Following Donald Trump’s return to the White House, bitter disputes over Greenland, and unilateral military strikes against Iran, the proportion of Britons describing the United States as a serious threat to world peace more than doubled - from around 35% in 2024 to 74% in 2026. Consequently, 42% of Britons now believe national interests are better served by closer ties with Western Europe - rising to 53% when the choice is framed explicitly as the European Union - while just 9% prioritise Washington alone.
In Westminster, this strategic awakening has already proved politically turbulent. As Gaston notes, the Starmer administration’s struggle to fund its ambition of raising defence spending toward 3% of GDP culminated in the resignation of Defence Secretary John Healey and a ten-month delay to a only partially funded Defence Investment Plan. It now falls to Prime Minister Andy Burnham - a Northern leader acutely attuned to regional economic pressures, who subsequently appointed Healey as Chancellor - to reconcile public demands for security with stretched public finances.
Beneath the headline consensus on spending lies a striking demographic split. Support for higher military expenditure is heavily concentrated among older Britons: 62% of those aged 55 and over back budget increases, compared with 47% of 35-to-54-year-olds and just 30% of under-35s - a figure actually three percentage points lower than a decade ago.
What do the numbers really mean if you live in Whitehaven or Withernsea? When the survey moves from fiscal preferences to personal duty, the divide widens further. Asked to rate the importance of being willing to serve in the military at a time of need on a seven-point scale, 45% of Britons aged 55 and over selected the top two categories, while only 8% deemed it unimportant. Among 16-to-34-year-olds, just 22% attached high importance to military service - nearly matched by the 19% who regarded it as having little or no importance. As Gaston observes, this creates an acute policy dilemma: it is younger Britons, not their elders, who would be called upon to fight in an active conflict.
Why do younger adults view national defence so differently? The BSA data points to both historical memory and political values. Having grown up long after the Cold War, under-35s are far less likely to hold traditional authoritarian instincts that prize state cohesion and obedience - a crucial distinction given that 47% of Britons with authoritarian outlooks view military service as vital, compared with 22% of libertarians.
Younger cohorts also interpret global threats through a distinct prism. While over-55s are markedly more likely than 18-to-34-year-olds to view China (71% versus 47%) and Russia (93% versus 81%) as serious threats, younger Britons are significantly more likely to regard the United States (79% versus 69%) and Israel (82% versus 76%) as threats to global peace. For a generation shaped by scepticism toward Western interventions abroad, traditional appeals to patriotic duty carry far less resonance. Are the realities around UK foreign policy for as long as any of us can remember, begining to land with our young people?
For us in the North of England, these national findings intersect with an uncomfortable regional reality. While Northern defence manufacturing is booming - with Barrow-in-Furness building every Royal Navy submarine across the Astute, Dreadnought, and SSN-AUKUS programmes - the region’s traditional military recruitment pipeline has faced sustained strain. House of Commons Library analysis shows that untrained Regular Forces intake in the North East fell by 34% between 2015 and 2024, outpacing the UK-wide decline, while the region hosts just 940 stationed Regular personnel. Even as recent Ministry of Defence figures point to modest net recruitment gains following pay rises and housing pledges, total full-time Armed Forces strength remains roughly 6% below target.
At the same time, Gaston’s research dismantles the lazy assumption that defence spending is locked in a crude "guns versus butter" battle against the welfare state. While fiscal conservatives are more likely to back defence increases, around half of Britons who favour higher spending on pensions (50%), carers (48%), and low-income parents (47%) also support boosting the military budget. Voters distinguish carefully between vital social safety nets and broader state expenditure.
Yet for young people in Northern towns grappling with insecure work, unaffordable housing, and stretched local services, the social contract feels frayed. Asking a generation to shoulder the ultimate civic burden requires first convincing them that the state invests meaningfully in their own prosperity.
Britain, Gaston concludes, has entered an era of "continuous competition" that demands a whole-of-society approach to national resilience. Hardware alone cannot deter adversaries if the civic bond uniting citizens and state continues to weaken.
For the North, bridging this generational divide represents both a strategic necessity and an economic opportunity. High-tech engineering apprenticeships in Cumbrian shipyards, cyber-security clusters in Manchester and Leeds, and clearer pathways into skilled technical trades can anchor national security in tangible regional renewal. If Westminster wants young Northerners to feel a duty to defend the realm, it must first ensure they hold an unmistakable stake in its future.
Header image: Army Reservists under training (Shutterstock)
