[bell-cot]

A whole lot of (mostly-)little things, over the past half-ish century, have lead them to seriously doubt the existing social order. Volunteering for military service is something of an all-in endorsement of that order.

Though it doesn't help that British kids have felt no visceral "we're at risk from $Powerful_Enemy!" fears since ~1990.

[times_trw]

One has to wonder if a majority of lower class able bodied men would particularly care if an enemy took over.

[LargeTomato]

Wasn't the lower class overwhelmingly pro brexit? They are xenophobic.

[times_trw]

One only needs to look at the Glorious Revolution to see what a hostile takeover of Britain by a foreign power which pays lip service to Britishness would look like.

Also one rather needs ones army to be xenophobic, a xenophilic army would be somewhat poor at its job.

I've been musing that the majority of ~canon fodder~ lower class working men are so destructively disengaged from main stream western culture that a new branch of Islam with 19th century western sensibilities - nationalism, nativism, chauvinism, etc. - would have very little trouble in taking over.