The Prime Minister is reportedly thinking of introducing digital ID cards in a bid to tackle illegal migration.
Sir Keir’s alleged move comes after 40 Labour MPs of the influential Labour Growth Group penned an open letter urging him to press ahead with the policy.
The idea of ID cards is not a new one – in 2002 the then Home Secretary David, now Lord Blunkett, set the foundations for national “entitlement cards” plans following the 9/11 attacks – but the idea was eventually shelved by the Tory-led coalition government following backlash from civil liberties groups.
Now, however, in the digital era, the ‘cards’ – known as BritCard – would be digitalised on citizens’ smartphones, effectively giving the state access to an individual’s details wherever they may be.
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Jacob Rees-Mogg hit out at the idea of ID cards
But, ID cards are an apology for failure, not a policy in themselves.
The Government has failed to control migration and illegal migrants work fairly freely in this country. Thus every citizen must be punished to make up for the government’s failure.
It won’t work. Illegal migrants work for companies who ignore the rules and don’t check their employees’ ID. They play below the minimum wage because they know their staff are illegal and have no choice.
Landlords who let property to illegals don’t carry out checks that are required by law, so ID cards will make no difference.
All ID cards do is make life more bothersome for the law abiding.
They change the relationship between the state and the individual. The law abiding citizen has no obligation to register with the police or prove who he is, unlike in continental countries.
Even motorists do not have to carry a driving licence on them.
In our common law system the individual is free to do anything that is not specifically banned.
GETTY | Keir Starmer
This is a great freedom but it is not the continental approach, there only that which the state permits is allowed.
Anything else is verboten.
Our freedoms date back to 1215, starting earlier really as Magna Carta was a confirmation of rights, not a declaration of rights.
ID cards put us under the control of the over mighty state, without having a hope of solving the migration problem.
It is cretinous to expect the illegal migrant, someone who has paid thousands of pounds to get here, or has simply overstayed his visa, will have broken dozens of laws, suddenly to say that I must have an ID card. It simply won’t happen, and it could only be effective if the ‘hostile environment’ policy was reintroduced, but that produced the Windrush scandal.
It is not ID cards that are needed, but a competent government that can secure our borders.
As Pitt the Younger said, “necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom: it is the argument of tyrants: Is it the creed of slaves”.
