Identity Cards in the UK?

 "Papers please!" Those words spell terror in a thousand war movies. Stasi or Gestapo officers are a breed apart from the unarmed plod who demands no ID [Identity] cards from free British people. So when a government contemplates a universal ID, it sends instinctive twitches down some spines. Though not many. Times and public attitudes have changed. And so have the political imperatives, for it seems that, for a Labour government struggling to seize the narrative after a difficult year in power, digital ID cards, and the sense of national belonging they could strengthen, may just be the weapon to fight off the ever rising threat of Nigel Farage's Reform UK...

Irish Immigrants
John Joseph Barker (1824-1904)
Photo Credit: Victoria Art Gallery [CC BY-NC-ND]

The driving political motive behind this is immigration - Labour wants to make it easier to identify people with no right to live here or claim public services here. The policies behind the "stop the boats" and "smash the gangs" slogans can never hope to guard every beach from every rubber dinghy, whatever politicians pretend, any more than they can "end crime". But ID would be a second line of defence against undocumented migrants who would find getting a job, renting somewhere to live or using public services nearly impossible without one. Curbing benefit fraud is also cited as another argument in favour by poll respondents in the report; with identity cards for all claimants, those ever-suspicious of benefit cheats, despite the very low fraud levels at just 2.2%, might be reassured...

Former home secretaries back it. Alan Johnson, David Blunkett, Charles Clarke, Jack Straw, Amber Rudd, and William Hague. Tony Blair has always advocated it...

Any system would need cast-iron guarantees that being denied services on the basis of not having a valid ID card would be dealt with instantly by senior enough officials to make robust decisions, with rapid appeal to courts, that were not blocked by backlogs.

But the political advantages are crystal clear. The almost 37,000 migrants arriving by boat last year signify a state's loss of control. It has been reported that some would be arrivals in Calais choose the UK because it doesn't have ID cards, unlike most of the EU [European Union].

(Polly Toynbee, The Guardian, 2025)

The mention of Stasi or Gestapo officers always raise fears of civil liberty and surveillance concerns.

Moving to a system of a universal ID system in the UK would be a huge change especially for many of the older generation who have never given a moment's thought to a system of ID cards and have been traditionally opposed to them. However, immigration is a very big issue here in the UK and any proposal to lessen  the numbers arriving in the country would be welcomed by many.

But if former ministers from both political parties have backed an ID system then the question has to be asked why has it not gone through before? And what about the present backlog in our courts? Bringing in an ID system would necessarily mean many appeals to an already overwhelmed justice system.

Whilst ID cards might well deter  some immigrants, will those desperate to escape war, persecution or poverty be convinced to stay away?

Letters

ID cards are the slippery slope to control. When everything in your life is connected to a digital ID, it is simple to ensure that you comply. I am a tax-paying, law-abiding citizen, and if an authority (ie the police) wishes to know my name and address, I am happy to tell them. If they are not happy with with my answer and deem that I am committing some offence, they can arrest me.

I feel no obligation to prove who I am. What I get very concerned about is giving some authority the ability to control me. I might be part of a peaceful demonstration, protesting against a government decision that I do not agree with. With universal ID, it would be very easy to request a person's card, record it and then mark someone as a possible dissenter. Let's not usher something along these lines in to appease the likes of Nigel Farage. Call him out for what he is.

My mother, who had to deal with the Nazis in Holland (she was hustled to a German work camp as slave labour) said to me: "Never live in a country that demands you carry an ID."

(Anthony Baylis, Egham, Surrey, The Guardian, 2025)

Polly Toynbee blithely deals with the obvious risks of identity cards in a couple of lines. She writes that a fairly serious problem like having your "access to everything" cut off would have to be "dealt with instantly by senior enough officials to make robust decisions with rapid appeal to courts not blocked by backlogs". Since none of that happens in pretty much any part of our society, a lot needs to change before I'd be happy with the BritCard as advertised.

(Ian Dawson, Heywood, Lancashire, The Guardian, 2025)

Surely Polly Toynbee was pulling her readers' collective legs? Every thought in this article appears to pander to Reform's anti-immigrant prejudices rather than make any kind of argument against them. ID cards, especially on smartphones, are wide open to abuse by any possible future authoritarian government. Is this the Polly I've admired for so many years?

(Dirk van Schie, Reigate, Surrey, The Guardian, 2025)