March 30, 2006
The battle is lost
So, the battle over ID cards in the UK has been lost. A law will get royal assent today which means that everyone who applies for a passport will get their details entered onto a national identity database.
The "compromise" which was reached to allow this draconian law to be passed was the delay until after the next general election of making the cards compulsory. Essentially now, what will happen is that all your details from when you apply for a passport will go onto a second database and when you apply for a new passport after 2010 you will be forced to buy an ID card too whether you want it or not.
I have already stated my complete and total opposition to this law but am not surprised to see my local puppet MP voting with the government yet again. Aren't MP's meant to represent their constituency rather than their party? I'm not sure she's ever voted against anything this awful government has brought forward.
I am now waiting to hear from NO2ID to see what the next steps are - we obviously aren't going to get this repealed without a new government. Phil Booth has said "This is a self-destructive policy to dwarf the Poll Tax" and I think he's right. The media has been totally complicit in not putting the incredibly draconian nature of this law forward hence why most people seem quite blasé about it.
How long before they propose just chipping us at birth and have done with it?
How long before people get some backbone and start to realise that the government is meant to do the work of the people rather than oppressing them with draconian laws and fear tactics?
How long before we fight back?
To be fair, I think it wouldn't do us any harm to ask why we react so angrily to the suggestion that we carry some verifiable form of identity in the manner that most of the rest of the world already do. We all accept that we need to show who we are when accessing our bank accounts, benefits, or another hundred and one daily activities.
I’m speculating here but I think that this seems to be a characteristically British superstition. A few years agi I had a job collecting annual electoral registration forms door to door. My then girlfriend who was German seemed unable to comprehend why we should need to do this, and I realised that in Germany there would indeed be no need for such an activity, as all citizens register their address with the local police when they move house! Germans seem quite at ease with this, although you would think they had more reason to fear authoritarianism than most Europeans. We also drove to Berlin and back, crossing five countries, with my girlfriend showing nothing at any border but her German ID card.
Perhaps we need to realise that we cannot take the benefits of an advanced technological economy without showing some personal accountability, and the idea that we can retreat into anonymity whenever we feel uncomfortable with others knowing who we are simply isn't compatible with a modern society.
I'm anti the ID cards for a number of reasons, but someone quite famous (who shall remain nameless, but if you know me well enough you can probably figure out who) put it in an interesting way, saying we'd be hearing a question we hoped we'd never have to hear since WW2..."Identification papers please."
I think that sums it up.
Posted by: Gabby at April 4, 2006 7:54 PM