Stamping out the embers of the ID Card nightmare
June 30th, 2009ID cards will not be compulsory, says Alan Johnson
Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, has announced the death of compulsory ID cards in a significant Government climbdown over the controversial scheme.
By Tom Whitehead, Home Affairs Editor
Alan Johnson said ID cards should not have been portrayed as ‘a panacea for terrorism”.
He said the cards will now only be issued to Britons on a voluntary basis meaning no one will ever be forced to have one, effectively paving the way for the scheme to be scrapped altogether.
A pilot scheme for airside workers, which marked the first attempt at making the £4.9 billion programme compulsory for British nationals has been abandoned.
Mr Johnson even admitted the suggestion the cards would help combat terrorism was exaggerated as he accepted the Government should never have allowed “the perception to go around that they were a panacea for terrorism”.
Instead, the Home Office is now concentrating on the cards being useful for youngsters to prove their age when going in to pubs.
It will remain compulsory for foreign nationals staying the UK long term to have an ID cards but Britons will only have one now if they request it.
Chris Grayling, the shadow Home Secretary, said: “This decision is symbolic of a Government in chaos. They have spent millions on the scheme so far – the Home Secretary thinks it has been a waste and wants to scrap it, but the Prime Minister won’t let him. So we end up with an absurd fudge instead. This is no way to run the country.”
[…]
This is in no way good enough.
First of all, if you do not give ID Cards to everyone, then people who are stopped and asked to identify themselves will be forced to identify themselves in another way. The pressure will very great to adopt the card ‘voluntarily’; there will be more hassle in daily life without it, especially when you cannot even buy a teaspoon without an ID Card.
Second, if the NIR still exists, it will be trivial for the next totalitarian government to reintroduce compulsory ID Cards, and in any case, the NIR, since it takes your fingerprints, will make your fingers your id card. The position still remains the same that if you do not want to go into the NIR, you will have to forgo having a passport. This is totalitarian madness and yet another demonstration that Neu Liebour, even now, simply cannot change its evil nature.
The NIR must be SCRAPPED. Anything less than scrapping it is UTTER NONSENSE, and everyone knows it, because they know that the database is the problem, and not the card. Everyone also knows that the NIR does not make sense if the whole population is not in it. It is an affront to all decent people and must be abandoned completely.
Third, the suggestion that ID Cards would stop terrorism was not believed by anyone with a single brain cell, and everyone who said it was called a liar by us, and people better than us.
Fourth, the need to prove your age is a completely absurd excuse to maintain the NIR and ‘voluntary’ ID Cards. There are private organizations that print these cards for those people who really want them, and in any case, underage drinking is a health problem, not an identity problem.
Fifth. Compulsory ID Cards for foreign nationals staying in the UK is discrimination pure and simple. These people ALREADY have ID – THEIR PASSPORTS with VISAs in them; in other words, they have been vetted before they even got here. To require them to have (and pay for) another, superfluous piece of ID, running on the NIR, costing BILLIONS of pounds is
Clearly they have not got the guts to completely back down and destroy the work of David Blunkett
and Jacqui Smith,
who all spent so much time lying and misleading in an attempt to sell ID Cards to the British public.
What these cowards are doing is trying to steal the thunder of the Tories. The Tories have promised to scrap the ID Card. So now, Labour, to save their skins, are scrapping it.
This is actually a good thing.
Now the Tories will have to double down or fold. They will have to up the stakes and say that they are going to dismantle the NIR, since it is the key to the whole totalitarian system, and they are the party of liberty and freedom. If they do not do this, they LOSE the argument.
With both of the two parties playing this game, in the end, there will be NOTHING LEFT of the totalitarian apparatus.
Either way, it looks like ID Cards and now the NIR are finally on their way to total annihilation, and not a second too soon. Next, ContactPoint is going to go up for the chop. When that happens, it will be impossible for Local Authorities to generate lists of who is and who is not registered at a school.
I can hardly believe it, and I am tentative in saying it, but it looks like Britain is on the mend!
FURTHERMORE
Alan Johnson says in the Daily Mail:
Everyone who wants a card, or a biometric passport, will have their details stored on the national identity register.
So now there are going to be TWO types of British Passport?! a Biometric one and NON Biometric one?!!
As far as I know, there is only one type of passport available to British Subjects, the BIOMETRIC PASSPORT and in order to get one, you are FORCED to enter the NIR!
Mr Johnson said he still believed the cards would help improve security at airports.
This is a lie. HOW will it help security ANYWHERE that it is required?
Mr Johnson said he was an ‘instinctive’ supporter of ID cards and said he wanted to ‘accelerate’ the delivery of the cards.
That means that he is an instinctive totalitarian. What an admission!
Next year young people opening bank accounts are to be encouraged to obtain ID cards and over the following two years anyone getting a passport will get one – but can opt out.
Just like it was predicted; they are were going to tie the ID Card to your bank account, and use it to monitor your every withdrawal.