Plans to abolish conscription have the support of more than half of the electorate, if the results of a poll commissioned by The Royal Gazette are scaled up.

Fifty one percent of people said they supported the move to eliminate conscription, while 39 percent said they were opposed to the practice being scrapped. Ten percent were undecided.

Younger people were more likely to be in favour of abolishing conscription, with 61 percent of people aged 18-34 agreeing that it should be scrapped and just 33 percent of people in that age group supporting conscription. But conscription was more popular among seniors. Almost half — 47 percent — of people older than 65 said they supported conscription, while just 37 percent of people in that age category said it should be abolished.

The survey, conducted by Global Research, was carried out in the first week of June when 408 Bermudians over the age of 18 were polled by telephone interview. The study has a margin of error of plus or minus five percent.

Both political parties pledged to abolish conscription ahead of the 2012 general election.

And earlier this year Premier and National Security Minister Michael Dunkley said there was “no debate to be had around the issue”.

“Once we have the report of the Security and Defence Review Committee in hand and in consultation with the Commanding Officer, conscription will be removed from our books,” Mr Dunkley said.

On Thursday, Larry Marshall of campaign group Bermudians Against the Draft said the poll result was evidence that most people were opposed to the practice.

“First let me state that it has always been our position that the justness of our cause is not predicated on polls,” Mr Marshall said.

“Conscription would be just as wrong irrespective of whether this poll showed a majority of Bermudians still supported its retention.

“Having said that it is indeed encouraging to see that a majority of Bermudians do in fact support the removal of mandatory military service. This shows that a just cause will inevitably prevail no matter how much propaganda is thrown out to the public. In our effort to abolish this current system which has brought immense suffering to an innumerable number of young men and their parents we have always emphasised the human rights aspect.

“More specifically that several human rights are violated and this has led to abuse on a number of levels which are well documented. Evidently our message has resonated within the community resulting in a majority wanting to see an end to this unfair system.

“I was particularly pleased to see that 61 percent of those between the ages of 18-34 wanted to see the abolition of conscription. This bodes well for our country and my plea to this demographic group would be to help facilitate this objective going forward.”

But a group of former Bermuda Regiment commanders is fighting the proposal, claiming that if conscription is abolished, Regiment manpower levels would not be sustained by volunteer recruits and the military outfit would have to disband.

To maintain manpower levels, the band of nine former chiefs is urging Government to introduce a National Service scheme in which every young person within a certain age bracket would have to volunteer for some kind of service, either with the Regiment, the emergency services, or some other community work.

A spokesman for the group said: “The Nine Colonels support not using conscription, provided there are sufficient volunteers. The Regiment needs to have an absolute minimum strength of 400 in order to be able to fulfil the roles it plays in the community. The number of volunteers needed to keep it at that strength is a kind of critical mass. If the number volunteering annually falls below that critical mass, the Regiment will shrink and quite quickly have to stop operating.

“There is a connection between Bermuda’s national security and the operation of the Regiment. The unit needs to be capable of sustaining our internal security without external assistance. Once the Regiment is weakened, it cannot be quickly restored to full strength.

“It’s not surprising that conscription was not popular with younger people but the operation of the Regiment is a serious business that involves people’s safety, not a popularity contest. Wisdom, as always, comes with age.

“We think that if you had asked in your poll how many people support keeping the Regiment in being, there would have been a great majority in favour. Our argument, which derives from our operational experience, is that it is sensible to keep conscription on the books to guard against the likelihood of it disappearing.”