Can we see your papers?
The announcement of a ‘BritCard’ – a digital ID scheme – is a sign of desperation from Keir Starmer’s beleaguered government, which is doomed to failure. The scheme, which will be announced today, has its origins in Tony Blair’s government but was revived by the ‘Labour Together’ project, which produced a report BritCard: a progressive digital identity for Britain — Labour Together.
Labour Together is the think-tank put together by Morgan McSweeney (he was director between 2017 and 2020) that’s the subject of calls for a parliamentary investigation into whether it secretly funded Starmer’s leadership campaign.
This is re-heated Blairism in the new context of authoritarian Labour. This is a revival of Blair’s 2006 proposal for a programme of national ID cards, which ultimately failed. No surprise then that the plans were welcomed by the Tony Blair Institute, with its director of government innovation, Alexander Iosad, saying: “Make no mistake, if the government announces a universal digital ID to help improve our public services, it would be one of the most important steps taken by this or any government to make British citizens’ everyday lives easier and build trust.”
Re-building trust? Really?
It’s a fusion of digital surveillance, authoritarianism and British Nationalism rolled into one.
But it also fuses the carefully nurtured hostility that’s been directed to anyone claiming benefits. As the MP Clive Lewis said: “BritCard – brought to you by Palantir. All part of a repression ready, gift-wrapped surveillance state for Farage to pick up and run with. Remember kids – authoritarianism is OK when it has a friendly font.”
The announcement has immediately been opposed by the First Ministers of Scotland and Northern Ireland, and the Liberal Democrats said they could not support “a mandatory digital ID where people are forced to turn over their private data just to go about their daily lives”.
Karl Hansen, editor of Tribune magazine responded: “Nobody should want compulsory ID cards under a petty authoritarian like Keir Starmer. Even worse, he’s so despised that he’ll almost certainly end up handing those powers to a Reform government.”
Jim Killock, the executive director of Open Rights Group, said that: “Labour are at risk of creating a digital surveillance infrastructure that will change everyone’s daily lives and establish a pre-crime state where we constantly have to prove who we are as we go about our daily lives.”
This is dystopian but also unworkable if people refuse compliance. The Labour Together report states: “The BritCard would be a verifiable digital credential downloaded onto a user’s smartphone, which could be instantly checked by employers or landlords.”
The mandatory card was on nobody’s manifesto. Nobody voted for this.
The digital ID is all about integrated surveillance, but it’s also a political provocation. This is the Anglo-normative world in which the Prime Minister yesterday announces that the results of the Scottish Parliament elections won’t matter. Whatever the result there will be no referendum on independence and the very next day announces a mandatory card that declares your British. This is a disaster waiting to happen. If Palestine was Starmer’s Iraq, the BritCard is Starmer’s Poll Tax. I’m not British so I won’t be carrying such a card.
I have no difficulty accepting and using an ID card. For many years now, in the course of our daily activities we have had to provide proof of identity. I am not worried about having to use a government issued one. In fact, I welcome it.
This is one of these topics where a few people enter phases of performative rage with lurid tales of Orwellian Big Brother.
Let me guess; you are white, over 50yrs old, CIS gendered, financially secure, not a political activist?
You’d be happy with a Farage-led government having access to you bio-metric and personal data? A guy who was selling dodgy financial advice on YouTube and Tiktok voiceovers couple of years ago.
Or Starmer. A man who thinks disabled wheelchair users wearing a T-shirt are terrorist sympathisers.
No, no mandatory ID card for this Scots woman, especially one that involves Palantir. Completely unnecessary, we already carry enough identification.
How many more rocks is this desperate Labour government prepared to perish on?
Your summary of integrated surveillance is chilling. Apart from the indigestible name turning us all into Brits (how well that will go down in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales!) this announcement comes suspiciously close to ‘deals’ announced during Trump’s latest visit. Big questions as to which organisation will control this massive data base and how it would be protected from cyberattacks. Even people who were previously relaxed about the id card are concerned about its adoption in the present authoritarian climate. Its yet another howler from Starmer who seems to have a talent for hitting execrable notes. It seems to have brought my concerns about the secrecy and opacity of the British state to the surface. Hope it has for others!
I don’t have a smartphone so I won’t be carrying one either.
The petition against this has already reached 675,000 in 12 hours. I’ve already written to my MP. In the time it took to write my email last night it went from 200,000 to 400,000.
If there was ever a time to ditch a smartphone, this would be it. The mass surveillance by the private sector is already overwhelming, although primarily aimed at advertising consumerism and identifying opponents to Mossad; and the screen time we spend (especially for children) is proven to be unhealthy. The state joining in is beyond the pale.
It is basically a suspension of Habeous Corpus, the basis of our law that we are innocent until proven guilty. I know this has been overlooked in the decades of neo-liberalism by debt collection agencies, the DWP, energy companies, parking fine companies, et al. Why should the innocent be burdened with more and more onerous levels of proof just because a minority break the rules?
And it is easily faked. There was a news article earlier this year about a businessman down south somewhere who was being fined £25K for employing an illegal worker, but he had been presented with immaculate but fake ID and references. The clue is in the name – digital. If it’s electronic format, it can be duplicated and altered. Paper ID is much harder to fake (we don’t really see a lot of forgery in currency for example) but not impossible for those with enough determination, and a lot costlier to introduce.
I don’t know what it is about Starmer, he seems to be able to p*ss off everybody in the country whilst thinking he’s doing good.
There is no need for most of us to carry an ID card. We already carry a driver’s licence and that asks all of the questions likely to be answered by any new card. Have you recently renewed your Driver’s licence, have you recently move home and asked for mail redirection, have you been asked to conform your right to vote incfluding a list of everyone resident at your address? All of these actions are fed directly into the spook database for use in watching all of us. Your car, if you have one, is monitored wherever you go your entitlement card is monitored every time to travel by bus, every plane journey is added to the mix. We are now being routinely watched by the use of Facial ID anywhere where there are cameras. Your internet actions are probably all routinely read. Your phone tells the where you are and can be listenedto as a secret microphone for others to listen to. If you try to use a VPN to block data collection most big companies will not allow you to access their sites as they want your data. There are many more examples of gathering data if you think about it
There is no need to carry anything else. It’s a simple matter for the sophisticated computers to filter this mass of data and identify where the holes are. Big Brother is here and watching you. I will not willingly carry an ID card for some busybody the demand to see it; I suspect however, that if you want to use a mobile phone it will become manatory to have all of your details on it for all to see.
Have a nice day
We each have a National Insurance numbers which you have to quote on numerous documents.
Anything where you have to prove your identity for a legal practice (house buying etc) is way more than just showing a driver’s licence and already requires the use of a dedicated smartphone app. Workplaces also require, at the very least, a passport, in person, to prove a right to work. There is way too much knee-jerk reacting to this ID card idea but it is interesting to see articles like this echoing everything Farage and Badenoch are also saying.
The common denominator in operation is hatred of Starmer and Labour.
Agreed that you already need a bunch of ID to get a flat or a job or become a director or open a bank account.
Its true that this issues unites old school liberals, libertarians and the left. But I think the common denominator is the complete breakdown of trust in politicians and the British state?
Not just trust. This changes the nature of the social contract. Now I am required to carry something. No one asked us, it’s being imposed, that marks a fundamental shift in relations between citizens and government.
100%
Niemand – just look at the facts-this policy wasn’t in the manifesto last year and indeed when questioned at election Keir Starmer said it wasn’t even being considered. It is a knee jerk response to Reform and if you think it will make any significant difference to stopping rogue employers employing non British citizens you haven’t been paying attention to fact that there are a whole raft of laws and penalties currently in place. All employers should currently request identification (usually passport) so how is digital id going to change the current situation?
It is purely performative and will be very costly at a time when the economy and public finances are under enormous pressures. Will you be happy when Rachel Reeves announces cuts to public services to help pay for identity cards?
Keir Starmer has inherited a difficult situation but he is making some really poor decisions and should not be immune for criticism when he makes them. This in my, and many other people’s, opinion is another poor decision for reasons I have clearly set out.
With Reform looking more likely every day to form next government, partly due to Starmer’s poor record the introduction of identy cards is not the wisest way to future proof British democracy.
It is a perfectly reasonable idea that will help cut out a lot of crap people already have to go through to prove who they are on a regular basis, crap that already includes compulsory use of smartphone apps, real time photo apps, passports etc. An ID card is standard across Europe but suddenly oh, we have to be different. ‘Show your papers?’ Whose pejorative line was that in recent years? Rees-Mogg in a classic example of British exceptionalism. People are living in a fantasy world if they think we don’t already have to prove who we are lots – we have to ‘show our papers’ all the time. This proposal is not about that being demanded in the street by police but for all the things we already have to and will no doubt increase across Europe. I hear no similar clamour of opposition about facial recognition at airports. Why? Because it will make things quicker and smoother.
Why cannot people wait to see what this proposal is in detail before condemning it with so much speculative negativity? No wonder this country is at such a low ebb – everyone wants to hate everything from minute one by default. Anything that unites Farage, Rees Mogg and Owen Jones in their opposition should make people at least think *seriously* about what they are actually opposing and why.
I am not against national ID in principle but find this announcement questionable My questions to be questioned are:
1)Why was this not on Labour manifesto and previously denied by Keir Starmer?
2)What is tie up to US tech companies whose leaders were present at last week’s state visit? (we are already too dependent on USA as Trump presidency has clearly demonstrated).
3)Who has ownership and access to the data?
4)What significant difference is it going to make to preventing non British citizens working in black economy? (this appears to be Starmer’s main rationale for their introduction).
5)What is the cost of introducing and maintaining this IT system? (we are constantly being told the country is bankrupt so we have to maintain policies like 2 child benefit cap).
6)Do id cards comply with Good Friday Agreement?
As I said above I am not against id cards on principle but acknowledge that many people are against it as a matter of civil liberties therefore but it should have been in proposed policy in a manifesto.
In short it is a policy that is being rushed in as a knee jerk reaction to Reform and immigration at the wrong time financially in the wrong way. I also dislike the way that Starmer has tried to link identity cards to patriotism as I consider this disingenuous at best and self defeating.
I fear it is a rushed proposal in reaction to a political problem that will unravel upon further scrutiny and is so typical of Keir Starmer’s tenure.
Cost and time to deliver. But fundamentally controls our liberty. And why do this for all when the NI number already identifies you. But o need to carry its around as only required by Employees and HMRC. In the wrong hands the new idea could track everyone from the phone unless they power it down.
Kirsty Innes, formerly Director of Technology Policy at the oligarch-funded think tank Labour Together, has claimed credit for draping Sir Keir Starmer in Union flags. She has just become special adviser to UK Science Secretary, Liz Kendall.
#LateStarmerism
It is a bit disturbing that this idea, a product of Labour Together which was not in manifesto, has suddenly arisen a week after Starmer met US IT tycoons and Trump. This leads to a whole raft of questions about who will have access to and ownership of the data the government is mandating we supply them with.
I also find it disturbing that he is selling it as an answer to asylum seekers (I cannot see how this will make any difference) and trying to build it up as a patriotic development of national renewal especially as this appears in response to Tommy Robinson’s unite the nation march. This is only highlighted by recent polling indicating that the Reform may well gain power after next General Election. The thought of a far right government and digital identity cards is worrying especially for those of us who prefer Scotland to be an independent country.
I assume that like most government IT projects this will be hugely expensive at a time when in all likelihood the Chancellor will tell us in upcoming budget that she thinks public spending is needing to be reduced. What public spending, services and sections of society will be sacrificed for this IT project.
If, as it rumoured, this id app is going to be called the Britcard this will not only meet a lot of resistance in Scotland,where many of us identify as Scottish and not British, but open hostility in republican parts of Northern Ireland where identity is such a contentious topic.
The current British system simply discriminates against those who don’t hold a driving license. I find my Swiss ID card extremely useful.
The current British system simply discriminates against those who don’t hold a driving license. I find my Swiss ID card extremely useful. I see no problem with ID cards per se but it has to be said that the record of Westminster and the devolved governments in implementing IT systems is not great.
Bang on.
It will be interesting to learn the sum total number of these IDs, given that SpyCops stealing the identities of dead kids is so old school. How many official but fictitious identities will be created, what will they be used for, and when will the public learn that the first batch has been stolen and used for (possibly as nefarious) purposes (see a popular television drama show for more details)? Will there be a secret embedded code that identifies an identity as a state-corporate undercover (and how soon will every foreign government have this cracked)? How much money will Palantir make by selling identities to corporations for their own spy networks? How soon will AI methods/holistic data models be able to assign high probabilities to fictitious IDs? And how soon will be the first documented case of organised criminals detecting an undercover officer in their midst by such methods? Or the first politician, CEO or high-ranking official to use an official fictitious ID to pay a sex worker or blackmailer?
I don’t doubt there are benefits to easy-to-use National ID systems (perhaps in accessing universal services by revealing eligibility not identity, although in some cases eligibility should maybe be universal too) with strong safeguards against state-corporate abuse and foreign/profiteering ownership or infiltration. But like so many things, you should not rationalise this ethically by balance-sheet accounting, simplistic pros and cons. But hey, a pilot scheme might tell us more about those. Now, where might be a good, tried-and-tested region for a pilot?
Assuming it hasn’t happened somewhere already:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/british-overseas-territories-citizens/british-overseas-territories-citizens-accessible-version
The petition is already over a million signatures
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/730194
Another million signed in 24 hours.
ID cards are unbritish but very French. It took the British a while to come to terms with the idea of passports. However, the majority of people are waving about their dumbphones that communicate with satelites in space whist being immersed in tictok.
As a Scots woman, I am not British. I don’t understand the relevance of your comments on mobile phones.
Yes, you are British. Like your name, it’s not a matter of personal choice.
Brogan is a name which has an Irish Gaelic origin. You can change your name by deed poll. Try engaging your mouse sized brain before commenting!
Is it your position that being ‘British’ is such a happy and enviable condition that it requires to be imposed by authoritarian coercion?
I was merely pointing out that a commenter has gone down a rabbit hole with Alice.
Mouse – strange that at recent census more than 50% of population in Scotland identified as Scottish as opposed to Scottish and British or British only.
Like it or not the Union Jack is not seen as being inclusive or neutral in Scotland by at least half the population.
Regarding the flag virus:
Chris Smaje of small-farm-future fame commented today on the flags, on his recent trip to Scotland, the density of flags got lower the further north he went, till they virtually disappeared at the Scottish border:
https://chrissmaje.substack.com/p/in-common
Thanks Mark, really interesting writing
I see that Dougald Hine, who also writes for Bella is on Romanticon.
Indeed.
The 2024 Scottish Census revealed that 66.5% of people identify themselves as Scottish and only 8.2% identify as British.
The report stated: “The percentage of people who said Scottish was their only national identity increased since the previous census (from 62.4% to 65.5%). The percentage who said their only national identity was British also increased (from 8.4% to 13.9%). The percentage who said they felt Scottish and British decreased (from 18.3% to 8.2%).”
It’s not a matter of personal choice or opinion, it is just a fact. You can choose a religion if you want, but your nationality isn’t really a matter of choice unless you really want to spend a lot of time in the Home Office in Glasgow on seats that are chained and bolted to the floor discussing matters with someone on the other side of an inch of perspex.
“British” is not a nationality. The United Kingdom is a union of Scotland, Wales and England with Northern Ireland, which is a province. These countries make up the British Isles. The people in these countries have different nationalities. Do you understand that?
@Margaret Brogan, British is an imperial identity, though, and as such not limited to the British isles. The British Empire hasn’t gone away (yet). Which is why lots of places still fly flags with the Union Jack in the corner. So perhaps a BritCard would seem to appeal to imperialists of various stripes (including USAmerican imperialists if their corporations sink their claws into it).
It might be of interest to see a summary of all identity card regimes within the current British Empire. I think Gibraltar has one already. According to Wikipedia, the Caymans version is “Optional and not fully launched. Legislation was enacted in 2022.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_identity_card_policies_by_country
The Channel Islands are another, different case.
Has Mechell][e Mouse inadvertently provided a description of their place of employment? The details about the furniture are striking.
Mouse. – I was an Eu citizen but some other people in 2016 (mainly from outside Scotland) decided to take my EU citizenship away from me. I am a UK citizen due to choice of other people in 2014. That is evidence enough to show that citizenship is man made and not fixed in stone but can be altered. I am also a Scottish national and like the majority of my fellow Scots identity primarily as Scottish.
“Unbritish”? The Brits first introduced compulsory ID cards in 1915, the French (or rather, the pro-Nazi Petain regime) in 1940. Admittedly, in Britain they were then dropped after WW1 (and reintroduced in WW2). What’s interesting though is that in both cases they were brought in at moments of major national crisis. That’s not the situation today. 30,000 people arriving on small boats (largely because all legal routes have been closed to them) is hardly an existential crisis: it’s only in Reform’s interest to present it as such. One difference with the Blair era is that then, ID cards were presented as helping people access public services. Now their primary purpose is being sold to us as enabling more efficient repression.
I see no problem with ID cards in a modern State with a written Constitution in which the population have the status of citizens, with a fair and proportional electoral system (as opposed to first past the post), a democratically elected second chamber, and an elected Head of State …
I see no reason why a clapped out oligarchy like the UK, where Parliament, and not the people, are Sovereign, with a corrupt monarchy and blatantly unfair electoral system, and which has been jailing dissidents by the hundreds over recent years, most recently over Palestine, would want to introduce an ID card except for the most nefarious and draconian ends…
It must be rejected out of hand. The corrupt oligarchic private school elite who run Britain are simply not to be trusted as Windrush, as the Post Office scandal, as the jailing of Assange and dozens of other cases bears out…
In Scotland we know just how effortlessly the Westminster elite can carry out a volte-face when it suits their interests…
Look how they are rolling back the powers of the Scottish Parliament, passing laws which go over the heads of Holyrood left, right and centre…
It has got so bad, even Nicola Sturgeon, hardly a radical, has expressed the view that Holyrood’s very existence is in danger…
They can do this because there is no written Constitution which clearly delimits which powers lie where and with whom exactly, moderated by an independent constitutional court in the event of disputes…
A modern democratic Contitution also guarantees citizens’ rights…
We don’t have any of these things in Ukania…
By the way, the idea that a guy like Jeremy Corbyn, utterly wedded to the Westminster ideology, and a salaried member of the biggest knocking shop on earth, is going to do anything radical to change things is laughable… He has been there so long, he barely remembers real life probably…
There are certain reasonable grounds for ID cards in modern democratic States. But Britain isn’t a modern democratic State in any shape or form… Hence, Starmer’s improvised initiative should be roundly rejected….
It is quite unbelievable that the Labour Party is running so hard to catch up with Reform, that it has surpassed the Tories in right wing thinking/actions whilst opening the door to No 10 to the very party they fear. I truly wonder if there is such a thing as political paralysis..but
labour appears to be suffering from it in bucketfuls .
The pitfalls of this latest….back of a fag packet, not in the manifesto policy attempt …are numerous and mostly already reiterated, but the obvious one
Installed by Labour….taken over by Reform after they’ve taken power…is frightening.
In turn, we have to make sure in Scotland that we don’t just rely on a failing Labour to make the case for #independence. The potentials, the challenges, the chance a better future need to be spelt out again and again…
#scotnotbrit a new, nifty wee tag, so thank you #Starmer at least for that!
There’s nothing really surprising about Labour lying right of the Tories, it is what happens when they win power, almost of every time…
They were more right-wing on Northern Ireland than the Tories for years, until Thatcher, who, admittedly was even more draconian…
They have been much more agasint the Scottish interest than the Tories, always, from Heath’s Declaration of Perth calling for a Scottish assembly which Labour resisted tooth and nail for decades and ultimately scuppered in the rigged 1979 vote with the last minute stick-on requirement of a super majority…
In supporting the nascent Israeli State, it was the Labour Party far more than the Tories which stood by Israel as Palestinians were being expelled from their homelands by the tens of thousands…
And as we know, under Tony Blair, Britain committed the most heinous international crime of them all in invading a sovereign nation State in a criminal, illegal war which led to the death of as many as a million Iraqis and overturned the new and fragile international rules based order which had emerged after the end of the Cold War, directly leading Putin to bet on an expanionist military-driven foreign policy…
Despite the Scottish people clearly and decisively voting for a Scottish parliament with full powers, Starmer and his crew of charlatans are busy undermining its autonomy and of course, Starmer is such an abject coward and pathetic man, he refuses to face the Scottish press when he comes up for one of his flying visits…
How anyone can still vote Labour is beyond me…
Here’s a plan to tackle illegal migration (itself a small proportion of all migration to the UK):
Fund the existing immigration and border control services properly (beyond the level they were at before significant cuts were made).
Increase capacity to process all immigration and asylum claims efficiently (as if immigrants were human being too).
Make safe routes to immigration a high priority (and thus “Smash (the need for) The Gangs” and “Stop The Boats”)
Design and implement an intelligent immigration policy with the consent of UK citizens using people’s assemblies to reach consensus.
This would meet the county’s needs and also employ people in useful, secure, decently paid government jobs.
No need to lay the ground-work for Brit-ICE.
No need for dodgy billion pound contracts for systems that will be shite and useless (see; Covid Tracking App, Horizon, Covid PPE procurement and the “fast-track”)
Maybe the authorities should make illegal immigration illegal?