UMSU Activist

“How would you like to learn vital life skills, face exciting challenges and make loads of new friends - while being paid for the privilege?” This is how the Army advertise life in the military. Adverts glamorise Army life as a way to go and see the world and have a pint with your friends on a Friday night.

It completely ignores the fact that young people are being recurited to fight and die in massively unpopular wars. The British military, under this Labour government, has occupied Afghanistan since 2001 and Iraq since 2003, and has seen hundreds of British soldiers killed (not to mention the millions of ordinary Iraqis and Afghanis). The UN has called Iraq “the worst humanitarian disaster in the world.” The deepening crisis in the Middle East and the strength of the opposition to the illegal Occupations at home has meant that the military have found it much harder to recruit. As the military face credibility and recruitment crises, they have turned to targeting students much more heavily.

The MoD has been producing lesson plans for children at school and offers grants and scholarships to students in both Further and Higher Education. Disgustingly, the military targets people who may have economic difficulties in carrying on their education with the prospect of well paid employment, while neglecting to mention the harsh realities of military life and the wars they will be fighting. They should have no place on our campus.

About half of all British Army Officers are recruited on university campuses, and denying them access to our campuses is an effective tool in countering military recruitment. Anti-recruitment campaigns should be used as part of the wider effort to end the Occupations in the Middle East, where the military’s role has been disastorous, and is opposed internationally, including by students.

We should not allow our Union’s resources to be used to encourage students to join the military or facilitate military recruitment campaigns. By banning military recruitment on our campus we send out the clear message that we do not give political or material support to the murderous Occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan by the British military. The military of any country should not be allowed to have a presence at our Fresher’s Fair, any other Union sponsored activities, on our Union premises or in our media.

We call for the troops to be brought home now and banning the military from our campus is part of the fight to achieve this.

Sundara Jerome

Stop the War activist