The mention of identity cards immediately takes me back to my childhood. “It’s a free country”, my peers and I would cheekily exclaim when challenged by petty jobsworths. Sadly, today, under Labour, the UK is rapidly transitioning into an authoritarian state.
The Stasi (East German secret police) could only have dreamt of the omnipresent surveillance to which the British state now subjects its citizens. Successive Governments have cynically used noble causes as a cover for greater intrusion into our personal lives. These include child protection, the prevention of terrorism and the UK’s general descent into becoming a low-trust society. From the “suspicionless” stop and search powers enshrined in the Terrorism Act 2000, to the attempts to undermine encryption and anonymity in the Online Safety Act 2023, the assault on the freedoms we once took for granted is relentless. Once the “Digital Pound”, a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), is launched, there will be even more opportunities for control. I haven’t even broached old Two-Tier’s crazed Digital ID plans yet!
Returning to my childhood, I fondly recall Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). I remember excitedly taking this out on VHS (remember that?) from the video store that used to be up the road from The Bittern on Thornhill Park Road. My grandparents lived through the Blitz. They therefore took particular satisfaction from the scene where Sallah (John Rhys-Davies), flanked by Dr Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott), punched one of the Gestapo officers in the face. This, in response to a demand for “papers, please!” Grandad was not a fan of harassment from petty officialdom. As it happens, nor were many of his contemporaries.
ID cards were last compulsory in the UK during the Second World War and its immediate aftermath. The National Registration Act 1939 was introduced to further national security and support rationing. However, once the war ended, the police couldn’t resist turning ID cards into tools of petty interference. This served to alienate the public. Things came to a head in the now largely forgotten case of Willcock v Muckle (1951). A motorist who stopped for a routine traffic issue took exception to being asked to produce his ID card. Lord Chief Justice Goddard offered a scolding critique of this mission creep:
“This Act was passed for security reasons during the war, and it is quite clear that it is now being used for a purpose for which it was never intended … To use Acts of Parliament passed for different purposes in this way is wholly unreasonable.”
Here, at least, the judiciary acted in the spirit of England’s great common law tradition. Rooted in the Magna Carta (1215) and championed by the likes of Sir Edward Coke, the bench had thrown down the baton. Churchill gladly picked it up. Churchill abolished ID cards in 1952, shortly after commencing his second premiership.
Roll forward to today. Digital ID represents a clear and present danger to this tradition, only amplified by technology. Like the swathes of Blairite anti-terror legislation, it is apt to be inverted. The temptation to terrorise law-abiding citizens through sinister data mining would be irresistible. The proliferation of the hated “non-crime hate incidents” is already an Orwellian jackboot stamping on the face of free expression. Centralised ID systems would confirm our relegation to the status of little more than walking taxable digits.
Starmer’s claims that Digital ID will reduce illegal immigration are laughable. Rogue employers and illegal immigrants already routinely ignore right-to-work checks. Labour knows this. Illegal immigration is just being used as the latest cynical cover for yet more state meddling in our lives. Labour’s motive is control, not security. As their economic woes deepen, Labour is seeking new ways to tax, track, and regulate the people of this country.
Australian author Anna Funder described East Germany as “Stasiland”. If Labour gets its way, Britain risks becoming “New Stasiland.” Reform UK Southampton says enough is enough. We must resist.
