Ego and ID

Why has Sir Keir Starmer decided that now is the right time to revive Tony Blair's ill-fated ID scheme?

Could it, I wonder, have anything to do with the rise and rise of Nigel Farage's Reform UK party? More than a little, I suspect. Blair managed to get the controversial idea onto the statute book in 2006 but Gordon Brown, who succeeded him as PM the following year, never got round to implementing the Identity Card Act. One assumes he had little enthusiasm for it but it has re-emerged under Starmer as the 'Brit Card' - not, despite its name, as a bit of tangible plastic to nestle alongside your bank cards and bus pass, but digitally.

This time it will be on your smartphone, though what happens if, like me, you don't possess one, is unclear. The government is working on it - why am I not reassured? Then again, it will apparently only be compulsory for those seeking work in the UK so, as a pensioner, I assume that precludes me. We are told we'll never be asked to produce it anyway, unless looking for work, so I guess for me the question is academic. We are, though, given to understand it will include name, date of birth, nationality or residency status, and a photo. Whether it will include address is out for consultation. Hmm.

Starmer has been told by his European counterparts, particularly Emmanuel Macron, that the lack of an ID card in the UK is a "pull" factor, encouraging migrants to risk the Channel crossing to work in our black economy. Now we're getting closer to the real reason, I suspect. I very much doubt unscrupulous employers will trouble to check for ID so it seems unlikely to achieve its stated objective. In other words, it's performative. - a half-baked response to 'illegal' immigration in a cynical attempt to park a tank in Farage's lawn.

And then there's the by-no-means trivial matters of cost (£400m), reliability and data security. Governments of all stripes have a shocking record when it comes to rolling out new IT systems, which invariably experience massive cost overruns and/or simply don't work - the Post Office's Fujitsu Horizon system comes to mind - and recent high-profile cyber attacks on outfits such as Heathrow Airport, Jaguar Landrover, Marks & Spencer, Transport for London and The Co-operative Group must give rise to well-founded scepticism that this latest scheme will fare any better.

But governments do like to be seen to be "doing something", which usually means a knee-jerk reaction to a problem more apparent than real resulting in ill-considered legislation rushed through Parliament which either has unintended consequences (the recent proscription of Palestine Action under the Prevention of Terrorism Act leading to the arrest of hundreds of pensioners) or languishes unapplied (the aforementioned Identity Card Act 2006). There is a high likelihood of Starmer's proposal ending in similar ignominious failure.

Rather like his premiership, one can't help thinking.

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