"There's great cynicism about this idea of collective effort to defend Britain'

Former MI6 boss Alex Younger tells The Independent the country must prepare for a war with Russia and how he doesn’t want to know if Donald Trump is spying for Moscow

- SAM KILEY

Britain needs to rearm and build reserves through a form of national service to defend against Vladimir Putin’s hopes of dominating eastern Europe and undermining the West, the former head of MI6 has warned.

Sir Alex Younger said people in the UK must realise that the threat from Russia – and its closeness to the US – is real, adding: “Putin and Trump together have done their best to persuade us that the rules have changed.”

Reflecting on whether Britain has the mettle for a full-scale war, he told Independent TV: “I worry – we have disarmed militarily, self-evidently. We’ve largely dismantled our military and industrial base, which is a big problem.

“We have, for many years, been completely free of any form of existential threat. We’ve unforgivably... launched a set of wars of choice, which have imposed sacrifice needlessly on young people and there’s great cynicism about this idea of collective effort to defend your country.

“I think we’re more comfortable thinking about the army as like the England football team; they go and do their thing over there and we watch it on telly – and that can’t happen anymore.”

Discussing what needs to be done to prepare, Sir Alex, known as “C” during his time as spy chief, added: “You’d have to ask a soldier about the actual efficacy of things like conscription. I have no idea… I know that it just needs to be a more integrated feature of everyday life. I think that will bring broader benefits. So I think this is probably more about a more creative and broader conception of what the reserves is.”