Matt Goodwin

Matt Goodwin

Britain is talking about war. But will British men fight for a country that is not fighting for them?

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Matt Goodwin
Sep 23, 2026

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BBC In-Depth

Suddenly, Britain’s establishment has discovered that it needs British men.

In recent weeks, many people within the political and media class have warned that war might be coming and British men must prepare to fight and even die for Britain.

Boris Johnson has talked about sending troops to defend Ukraine from Russia. The Liberal Democrats have urged the government to establish an ‘emergency register’ of civilian volunteers who could be called upon to fight for Britain.

Government officials are updating Britain’s ‘war book’, preparing for the possibility of conflict by the end of the year. Britain’s most senior soldier, Sir Richard Knighton has warned that “the risks and threats to the UK are greater now than at any time since the Cold War”, having previously said, last year, that “we need more people being ready to fight for their country”.

And this week, while the BBC turned heads by asking, “war may be coming, are we psychologically ready?”, Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg caused a stir by saying:

“In the next few years, we may face a war. We will need people who will go out and do their duty. We may even face circumstances where people have to die to save their country as they did in the First and Second World Wars”.

But while the establishment is clearly gearing up for war, here’s a much bigger and more uncomfortable question it should ask first: Why should British men and boys be willing to fight and perhaps die for a country they feel will no longer fight for them?

I ask this because you cannot spend years demoralising British men, discriminating against them, weakening their sense of attachment to the nation, and undermining their stake in the future of that country only to then turn around and demand they ‘do their duty’ and get ready to risk their lives at war.

Yet that is precisely what the ruling class is now trying to do.

For much of the last twenty years, politicians have imposed two-tier policies that openly discriminate against the very men they are now telling to prepare for war.

The universities forcing British students to take ‘white privilege’ tests and apologise for Britain’s history and culture. The scholarships and studentships that openly exclude boys from the white working-class.

The taxpayer-funded media, like the BBC, which often use the British people’s own money to portray their history and identity as a source of ‘racism’ and shame.

The police that have introduced ‘race action plans’ that explicitly prioritise minorities over the majority, while implying many people in the latter are ‘racist’.

If there is a symbol of how much of the establishment think of British men then it is surely Henry Nowak, who was forced to deny he was ‘racist’ while dying in front of politically correct police officers and his murderers.

Global corporations like Netflix, meanwhile, use their immense cultural power to portray working-class lads, much like we’ve seen in the political debate ever since Brexit, as inherently problematic, “far-right”, “misogynists”, and “divisive”.

Even our own Armed Forces and security services have been caught discriminating against the very demographic group on which they might soon have to rely on.

The Royal Air Force was found to have …

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