As Europe prepares for the worst, Britons get schooled in preparedness

The last time any British government launched a national public preparedness campaign was at the peak of the Cold War in 1980. The “Protect and Survive” message was delivered in short, eerie-looking public information broadcasts and booklets, meant to advise people on how to prepare for a nuclear attack. The campaign — whose guidance included hiding under a heavy table or tips about how to store a dead body in the house for five days — backfired and was ridiculed.

Brits realized little would protect them from a thermonuclear strike, leaving them feeling that preparation was pointless as survival would be futile. Nearly 50 years on, the head of the British Army, Gen. Sir Roland Walker, addressed some 700 soldiers last month at Britain's biggest garrison in northern England. The "business of soldiering" had returned to the national psyche, he told members of the light, high-readiness global response force, adding that anyone following world affairs will realize there is “extreme jeopardy."

“The political leaders of this country,” he said, “will start to have a frank conversation with the citizens of this country about just what is going on, and where the risk lies, and what the nation ... must need to be prepared to do.” Exactly one week later, Britain’s “Be Ready” campaign was unveiled, a guide on preparing for 72 hours of self-sufficiency in the event of an emergency, be it a climate crisis, cyber disruptions or threats by hostile states.

“It’s something that emergency planners have been wanting for a very long time,” said Lucy Easthope, a global disaster recovery specialist. Easthope has advised in emergencies from the Novichok poisonings in Salisbury, England, to the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami and 9/11. Easthope says what the public wants is reassurance — not negative and depressing messaging. “Ancient DNA, by that I mean 30 years ago, is being reawoken,” she told CBC News.

“This is reawakening the idea that it's perfectly survivable. “I’m really pleased in the U.K. we haven’t resorted to fear messaging.” Other European nations have also recently introduced or updated their emergency guidance, including France, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Germany and Poland. Ottawa, too, has reiterated its longstanding advice . But unlike Canada with its emergency preparedness week — an annual event since 1996 — Britain faces a cultural hurdle, with the word "preparedness" not even being in most Brits' vocabulary.

The U.K. has largely relied on community resilience to short-term disruptions, rather than self sufficiency. Now, it faces the challenge of convincing people that they must be prepared for the worst — without sending them into a panic. Widespread warnings In Hertfordshire, north of London, family physician Nyari Matebwe says her first reaction was to roll her eyes and ignore it. “I feel like it’s scaremonger-y, or the skeptic in me thinks maybe they’re hiding something from us … another distraction from the real issues,” she said.

The recent suspected hacking attacks on supermarket freezers in multiple European countries and attempts to raise temperatures in French medical fridges containing critical blood donation stocks have made her question her own skepticism. “After the recent airplane bomb hoaxes, I did start to think about it a bit more,” said Matebwe, whose teenage daughter is pushing her to take the prepping message seriously. Sweden is advising seven days , Germany up to 10 , but the U.K., like Canada, has settled on three days' survival off-grid.

School parents’ WhatsApp groups are lighting up with conversations “I want to stockpile but I’m in a state of inertia,” one parent wrote. “My husband is totally unbothered.” Another asked, “How will we cook if there’s no gas or electricity?” while one raised concern about rising crime rates and the risk of keeping cash at home. Warnings have been widespread recently. Richard Horne, the head of the U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which is part of the government’s signals agency GCHQ and the Five Eyes intelligence sharing group that includes Canada, told CBC News: “This is a moment of urgency.”

The NCSC says AI-powered malicious software is “highly likely” to be used in hacking attacks against the power stations, airports and hospitals in the U.K. within two years. In Horne’s annual state of the cyber nation address, he said “military networks are subjected to sustained and persistent, widespread attempts to penetrate our systems." That included Russian hybrid warfare campaigns, he said. “All countries need to be taking this moment seriously," he told CBC News.

“There are loads of vulnerabilities that do not need to be there,” which he said the country's adversaries are exploiting. 'Hard times have been forgotten' Outside the need for companies to keep their technology safe, Horne said at home it is a case of keeping devices up to date and using passkeys. “You do need to be thinking about, 'do I need to be having the levels of connectivity of devices across my house, apartment' … not unnecessarily introducing potential vulnerabilities.”

There are some who see the “Be Ready” messaging as another example of the "nanny state," or the government telling them how to live. Others think cultural attitudes play a part. Luis Martinez Arnal, an IT professional from Spain now based in London, says his Mexican wife automatically prepares for emergencies, having grown up in a country prone to earthquakes. “But in the U.K.,” Arnal said, “hard times have been forgotten.” The accessibility of everything, he added, “psychologically is making us feel more comfortable.”

The recent cyberattacks have created a heightened sense of anxiety across Europe, and as people grow more reliant on the internet, questions are being asked how anyone can prepare to stay connected if it went down. Those haven't been easily answered — especially as Britain has long planned to switch all copper-wire landline phones to internet use-only from the end of January 2027. “Call me crazy, but following the new guidelines, I do feel a bit nervous,” said one London mother, Amee Doshi, pointing to talk about the potential for a world war.

Others appear to be taking to it like true preppers. “We bulk-buy,” said Preyal Shah, a working mother from Harrow in northwest London. “I even now have 10 kilograms of rice, five kilograms of pasta … multiple cases of tinned food, each type being 12 tins.” Preyal said she is also stockpiling newspapers to light a coal-burning stove: “Back to basics.” Competing crises In October, British Defence Secretary Wes Streeting warned that the country needs to be “ready for war in 1,000 days," flagging the potential of Russian aggression.

“To prevent the worst, we have to prepare for it,” he said. “We’ve just got so many competing crises at the moment … and war in Europe,” said Reena Patel, a lawyer from north London, referring to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “It’s not necessarily that I’m thinking war is coming but…” she said, listing off all she wants to buy, from a wind-up radio to water purification filters. “The only thing I have in my control is to try to be a little bit prepared.”