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The history of England, wrote the historian and politician Thomas Babington Macauley, is the history of liberty.
But who would ever write such a thing today, as Keir Starmer and his incredibly unpopular Labour government are rushing to further restrict our freedom and liberty by fast-tracking digital identification?
A reminder.
Digital ID was never in Labour’s 2024 general election manifesto.
It was not mentioned once. Nobody in this country was ever offered digital ID, ever asked for digital ID, or ever voted for digital ID.
Yet as with so many other policies that have been imposed on us from above—mass immigration, broken borders, two-tier justice—this policy, pushed on by Blairites behind the scenes, is now being introduced with no democratic mandate whatsoever.
On the surface, the argument from a Labour government that has completely lost control of our borders is that digital ID will help them control the borders.
But this is clearly nonsense.
Most of the 180,000 illegal migrants who have already crossed on the small boats, as well as the 180,000 who have yet to join them between today and the next general election, dump any identification cards they have along the way.
And ask yourself —have national identity cards in, say, Germany and France stopped those countries from being completely overrun by an illegal migration crisis?
Of course not. Much like an array of identification documents here in the UK have not stopped some 1.2 million illegal migrants from working in the black economy.
What is causing the illegal migration crisis is not the absence of digital ID.
It’s the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). It’s Tony Blair’s Human Rights Act (HRA). It’s the utterly absurd decision by the Uniparty to incentivise illegal migrants by giving them endless welfare and hotels.
This is what has empowered an army of activist lawyers, like Keir Starmer, Lord Hermer and their legal cronies to put migrants who break our laws ahead of the hardworking British people who respect our laws.
The answer to the illegal migration crisis is not to strip away even more of our freedoms; it is to deal with these issues direct. Leave the ECHR. Repeal the HRA. Detain and deport. Put the British people first.
So, let me be clear.
What digital ID is really all about is yet another power grab, another lurch for control, another attempt to hoard power, by an instinctively authoritarian Labour Party and a failing, broken state.
Ask yourself.
Why on earth should we give the state more power over our daily lives when that same state cannot even perform its most basic duties, such as controlling our borders, running an effective health service, or fighting crime?
Why should we give even more power and control over our lives to the very same state bureaucrats who created two-tier ‘vaccine passports’, who pushed for two-tier sentencing guidelines in the justice system, who routinely refuse to share the state’s own data with taxpayers when it comes to immigration, welfare, and crime, and who routinely deride the British people as ‘misinformed’ idiots? Are these the kinds of people you trust with even more of your data, with even more control over your lives?
Why enable the rise of an even more invasive and powerful state that will force YOU to show the ‘right’ code to buy things, borrow things, access things, and justify your own existence in your own home? How much of a stretch is it, really, to think digital ID will soon be used to marginalise those who express views, opinions, and political loyalties that are unfashionable in London, Oxford, Cambridge, and Brighton?
Why trust a state that could not even build a fast train line from London to northern England on time and on budget to deliver a national digital ID system without wasting hundreds of billions of pounds and leaving us vulnerable to cyber-attacks?
And why should we give the same state bureaucrats who cannot even control our borders much greater control over our lives?
No thanks.
“The Leftist project”, wrote the English philosopher Sir Roger Scruton, “is always to replace the bonds of civil society with the bureaucracies of the state. For only when people are dependent on the state are they truly under its control”.
And this is exactly what digital ID is about –further empowering an unelected, unaccountable, and incompetent state bureaucracy that is fundamentally opposed to what Macauley noted these islands are all about —liberty.
Labour officials, of course, from Tony Blair to Keir Starmer to Shabana Mahmood will tell you over and over again that digital ID “is necessary”.
But as William Pitt the Younger once said:
“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves”.
People who really know Britain, who really know England, have always known that our freedoms come from below, from the rich tapestry of civil society, communities, the Church, citizens –they do not come from above, from a controlling, overbearing state.
The Left never understood this which is why, ever since 1997, it has constantly tried to control us. It is all the Left instinctively knows what to do, especially when it is losing the wider argument.
What did Keir Starmer do after Southport? He announced a free speech crackdown.
What did he do during the rape gang scandal? He denounced everybody as ‘far-right’ before fast-tracking a definition of ‘Islamophobia’ that will shut down debate.
And what is he doing today, amid all the protests, flags, and rise of Reform? He’s lurching again for control and censorship.
It’s classic authoritarian, radical Labour —when you cannot win the argument you try and shut down the argument and control the people.
Make no mistake. Digital ID is not only about Digital ID. It is about further expanding this creeping regime of censorship and control over the British people.
It’s about the proliferation of unnecessary ‘hate laws’ to ensure that only the ‘right’ or ‘acceptable’ views are heard while others are marginalised, if not shut down.
It’s about the insidious spread of ‘non-crime hate incidents’, which are used to aggressively police what we can, or cannot, say in our own home.
It’s about the spread of ‘diversity, equality, and inclusion’ policies and speech codes, which are likewise being used within our tax-payer funded institutions to silence dissent and promote two-tier policies.
It’s about that dodgy and dogmatic new definition of ‘Islamophobia’ that will, inevitably, shut down serious debate about the rise and spread of Islam in the West.
It’s about the Online Safety Act, which is further narrowing what can be said in the public square.
It’s about throwing people in jail for what they write on social media in their own home.
It’s about five armed police officers arresting a comedian as they step off a plane after criticising transgender dogma.
It’s about police forcing a stage-four cancer patient to apologise for something she said online, and visiting parents who happened to complain about their local school in a Whatsapp group.
It’s about policing what we say and think, and now potentially also where we can go, rather than policing things that actually matter —such as crime and broken borders.
This is what digital ID is really all about –entrenching and expanding this dogmatic regime of state-backed censorship and control.
What it is most definitely NOT about are all those things that Macauley, Scruton and others have long noted define these islands, this place we call home.
Freedom. Individual liberty. Free speech. Free expression.
Digital ID is unBritish. It is un-English. It is a creeping corrosion of our freedom. It is, put simply, not who we are.
So now, once again, we will need to remind our hapless politicians in Westminster about our history, our identity, and who we are.
We must Say No to this blatant state overreach.
We must Say NO to the steady expansion of this censorship regime.
We must Say No to the constant transferal of power and authority away from the people to unelected bureaucrats.
And we must Say No to Digital ID, the latest symbol of this authoritarian regime.
That’s why I’ve signed this petition against digital ID and urge you to do the same.
And that’s why I fully support Nigel Farage’s and Reform’s call, today, to abolish Digital ID if and when it is forced upon us.
Macauley was right when he said the history of this country is the history of liberty. And now, once again, it will be up to the people to not only remind their politicians about this fact but to step forward and defend this remarkable history, culture, and way of life from once again being thrown into the dustbin by a Labour Party that has never truly understood the country it claims to govern.
I hope someone can ask this question.
If I refuse the ID, I lose my job. I can’t access benefits without the document so in effect I lose any support.
Now compare that heavy handed approach to those breaking into our country. They’ll continue to get a roof over their head and allowances because as the government keep telling us ‘it’s inhumane not to and it would break international law’.
So me as a British citizen could end up being left out of services I’ve paid into and left to suffer because I choose not to have a digital ID whilst those not born here get given everything because of international law.
This government is done for, thank god
Excellent article. It is UnBritish. Just an extension of this government’s Orwellian control mania. No thanks.