Labour is continuing to prove it is inept. As the Guardian reports this morning:
Ministers have rolled back plans for a central element of the proposed digital ID plans, leaving open the possibility that people will be able to use other forms of identification to prove their right to work.
This will mean that the IDs, announced to some controversy in September, will no longer be mandatory for working-age people, given that the only planned obligatory element was to prove the right to work in the UK.
Why has the policy failed? Because people did not want it to be compulsory or to be used for penal purposes against immigrants. Both were overreach, and it is clear that the government had a disaster in the making on its hands if it had pushed the issue.
What to conclude? Three things.
One is that Labour cannot think. That this was going to fail was obvious from the outset.
The second is that this shows a party to be massively out of step with the country it governs.
The third is something perhaps more important. It is that this country is not ready for, and would not welcome, authoritarianism and serious constraints on liberties imposed by a government seeking to enforce structural prejudice. There is some hope in that. Reform should take note.
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Agreed.
Let’s hope the whole scheme is scrapped.
Digital ID or as it was called at the start the ‘Britcard’ – was another piece of ‘muscular unionism’ (that both Labour and Tories are fond of) – called the Britcard and with a big union jack on the digital ID. Very good at confronting those in Scotland and Wales (and many in England too) who reject a British identity to instead be Scottish, Welsh or English.
It is all very insecure and pathetic, but very predictable as well.
(Very good polling for Plaid and the Greens in the latest Senedd poll that came out yesterday, which is all very encouraging.)
Thanks
This announcement last night waa an absolute sham. They may have dropped the Digital ID card concept but it’s more semantics. Read what the Times says ‘Starmer wants to refocus the case for IDs on making it easier to register births, marriages, death, BANK ACCOUNTS, voting and booking GP. Last time I looked THAT IS WHAT we are opposing. Language that is a real wolf is sheeps clothing.
Labour announce something, backtrack and do it anyway under the radar.
The labour ‘top table’ appear inept – I dont for a minute believe that. There are devious beyond.
The battle to stop this hasnt even begun.
Noted
“easier to register births”
How are births registered in the UK?
In the USA it is done by the hospital or attending birthing professional if ones chooses a non-hospital delivery.
Parents have the obligation here.
Quite how it would make booking a GP appointment easier given the absence of enough GPs was never made clear.
A curious BBC might have asked whether the loss of trust in the digital ID surveillance state could have been partly due to the sneaky government contracts selling off NHS patient data and MOD data to the rogue Thiel company Palantir.
True…
As the saying goes it aint what you do its the way that you do it
The UK historically relied on port control with the assumption tat everyone within our borders was legal.
Because most of the world has land borders this clearly didnt work so they set up Population Registers and/or ID card systems.
Firstly I suggest that ‘Port Control’ if it ever worked given the current numbers arriving – and leaving the UK is no longer viable and as we have seen with Windrush there are a lot of issues over the status of many people in the UK – for avoidance of doubt I am not implying that they are not resident legally but that their status hasnt been properly decided/recorded/whatever
Oh and just look at Spike Milligan and his nationality issues!
Then of course there are the issues many people have with establishing their ID especially thouse who dont have the whole panopy of middle class paperwork.
My suggestion is that we roll out a national population database and ID card system over – say 10 years and include within this process sorting out citizenship status and offering Citizenship to all those who are hear legally – just what Boris Johnson no less suggested, and at no charge
I would also suggest that we do not impose the system on people born before a specified date – at the moment 1.1.60 looks sensible
Given that we already have the DWP National Insurance database and about 75% of the population hold a passport it doesnt strike me as a massive undertaking. Also of course it could be included with Universal Credit ID checks.
Done correctly and with the right frame of mind it could make life easier for many people
I like your thinking.
I will think about this – but I see it as the subject of a video.
Thank you
Do contact me if you want some assistance with it
I have decided against it as a video topic……sorry
In the spoof film ‘Idiocracy’, citizens have a bar code tattooed above their wrist.
Maybe Labour has delayed the previous scheme because Palantir has seen Idiocracy too and……….well?
Both this and last time when Labour proposed ID cards it was proposed as a stick, something imposed on everyone to catch wrong doing. There are many, many people who aren’t keen on the idea because while they have no issue with that purpose, they don’t see why they, as ordinary “law-abiding” citizens should have them imposed on them – everybody inconvenienced to catch a few.
If they want to sell ID cards then the way to do it as a carrot, make the case that that will make peoples lives easier than they are now, not another complication in their lives. The Times piece quoted above with “making it easier to register births, marriages, death, BANK ACCOUNTS, voting and booking GP” is a step in that direction, while most those things are usually fairly easy, occasionally complications arise, they would certainly be easier if one just had to show an ID card or quote the card number.
If they are not mandatory, those who have a serious, or even less serious, principled objection may still object but it can be argued that their objection is not a problem since they do not have to have one and if they actually make peoples obviously lives easier in practice, then many of those will eventually sign up.
There’s a model for that approach with the Scottish ‘National Entitlement Card’ which is a non-mandatory ID card which was introduced with barely a whimper. It is promoted as a very useful thing to have, not an imposition.
https://www.nec.scot
Ireland has a non- mandatory Public Services Card (PSC) which proves identity for public services like social welfare, but also has a passport card a credit-card-sized ID for proof of id when travelling within the EU/EEA/UK/Switzerland and a Garda Age Card for proof of age for those over 18.
https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/social-welfare/irish-social-welfare-system/public-services-card/
There is some opposition to the PSC card
https://www.iccl.ie/privacy/public-services-card/
The Scottish NEC is effectively the equivalent of a combination of the PSC and Garda card
Thanks
Your logic makes sense to me
Past 24 hours but mulling on this… How many doorways do we have to our houses? 1, 2, maybe 3? So, what they are saying is this card etc will give 1 access. 1 doorway to everything. Well there are good reasons why we don’t have one doorway to everything. I have a national insurance number, to present, when needed too. I have an NHS number to present when needed.
We were initially told ‘ID card to help immigration etc. Immigration is not the enemy.
Oh and it wont be Palantir controlling it – it will be Ellisons Oracle.
Switch off the internet? damn right!