Sitrep: Don't be Jack – how military veterans can serve again, this time in politics

As Labour swept to power in a landslide victory in the General Election, a number of military veterans also took their seats in Parliament across the UK.

One of those, Labour's Louise Jones, was on the latest episode of the Sitrep podcast – which analyses the top defence stories of the week and is available wherever you get your podcasts.

Ms Jones served in the Intelligence Corps, which saw her deployed to Afghanistan and Germany before finishing her time with the Armed Forces in Cambridgeshire.

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She said she stepped away from her post-military career in technology to get involved in politics because of what she saw in the communities around her.

"I just remember looking around me and seeing even still the hugely increasing rates of people accessing food banks," she said.

"I was just looking around me and thinking, you know, is this the country that I want to be a part of?" she said.

Ms Jones said something "you really get instilled in you in the military is to not just stand around, not to be Jack". 

"I thought, look, I do believe Labour is the party that always puts working people first," she said.

The MP for North East Derbyshire said she initially thought she would just be a foot soldier, but that soon changed.

"What I found… was that if you've got a voice, you should use it," she said.

Ms Jones is not alone, with 35 elected MPs having military experience.

Jonny Ball, the host of the Veterans in Politics podcast and the founder of Campaign Force, which encourages veterans to stand up and serve again, also joined Sitrep.

"I'm not saying that we're golden people within the Armed Forces community, but you know what? We got a good start, right?" he said.

"I think politics is crying out for a bit of a refresh on those behaviours too."

He said there are a multitude of reasons why military veterans stepping into politics is a good idea.

The first one Mr Ball listed was inspiration, outlining that if veterans being elected inspires others to serve on a local government level, that can only be a good thing.

"Local government is a mess," he said. "I've worked extensively in local government and the talent is pretty variable in terms of local councillors."

He also said it is important to have people who have been involved in tackling threats when it comes to making decisions about the global dangers the UK faces.

"I think it matters… in terms of our global threats, having people, that've actually been there, they've been on the ground in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans, Northern Ireland, is really important because these people ultimately are going to vote on key decisions of national security," he said.

Lastly, Mr Ball said military veterans bring skills and values from their time in the forces that some may argue British politics has been lacking.

"It's really important that they bring those skills, hard skills from service and the experiences and the values because we've all been really sick of some of the behaviours in our politics," he said.

You can listen to Sitrep wherever you get your podcasts, including on the Forces News YouTube channel.