Only a totally MAD DOG would vote Labour after everything that they have done, and what they are still promising to do. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

++ NO2ID Supporters’ Newsletter No. 148 – 5th May 2010 ++
+ ELECTION SPECIAL +

We’re sending the newsletter early this week, so that you have it in time for the election. NO2ID remains rigorously non-partisan: our battle is not with one party or another, but rather against the database state. This principle enables us to work with, and be supported by, people from across the political spectrum and helps make our arguments all the more effective. Evidence of this may be seen in the fact that by 30th April, opposition parties’ 2010 manifesto commitments on the National Identity Scheme stood as follows:

• The Conservatives (standing 631 candidates) will “scrap ID cards, the National Identity Register and the ContactPoint database”;
• The Liberal Democrats (631 candidates) will “scrap intrusive Identity Cards and have more police instead”. They also intend to “scrap plans for expensive, unnecessary new passports with additional biometric data”;
• The UK Independence Party (543 candidates) will “abolish ID cards” which involve “harvesting large amounts of highly sensitive personal data” and are “an ingredient in an increasingly intrusive surveillance society”;
• The Green Party (315 candidates) oppose ID cards and “also have grave concerns over the development of a national dataset, including detailed biometric data, which has potential for the infringement of civil liberties”;
• The British National Party (270 candidates) will “halt all moves to introduce ID cards as an undesirable manifestation of the surveillance society”;
• The Scottish National Party (59 candidates) would “cut the projects that the country doesn’t need and can no longer afford such as Trident, ID cards and deep storage nuclear dumps”;
• Plaid Cymru (40 candidates) will “continue to oppose legislation to make possible secret inquests, Internet monitoring, wasteful ID cards, the national DNA identity register and longer pre-charge periods of detention for suspects”;
• The Scottish Green Party (20 candidates) will not have ID cards which “are an unnecessary invasion of our privacy and will do nothing to prevent crime and terrorism”;
• The Social Democratic and Labour Party (18 candidates) will “continue to point to the savings possible by scrapping spending catastrophes of the current government such as the £5bn ID cards”;
• The Democratic Unionist Party (16 candidates) says “plans to introduce ID cards should be scrapped”;
• The Pirate Party (10 candidates) “strongly oppose compulsory ID cards, and pledge that we will never introduce them”;
• The Respect Party (11 candidates) succinctly states: “No ID cards”;
• The Alliance for Green Socialism (6 candidates) will “scrap ID cards and databases of personal information”;
• The Communist Party of Great Britain (6 candidates) calls for “an end to prolonged detention without charge, house arrest and plans for ID cards and full restoration of the rights of assembly, protest and free speech”;
• The Liberal Party (5 candidates) “oppose the introduction of ID Cards and the ‘Database’ State”;
• The Libertarian Party (4 candidates) will “immediately scrap the compulsory National ID card scheme”

Labour is the only main party that has said it will continue with the ID scheme. Despite assurances that the (merely token) card itself would remain voluntary during the next Parliament, from 2012 under a Labour administration *everyone needing a passport would be forced to enrol on the centralised ID database and be fingerprinted – and have to pay for the privilege of having their identity ‘managed’ by the state for the rest of their life.

Our sampling of candidates who have responded to NO2ID supporters suggests that many Labour candidates are propagating the “voluntary” line to their constituents. But some do get that it’s really more about the database, and a tiny number have even said they would support the repeal of the Identity Cards Act.

The battle is far from over. It is all the more important we continue the process of education and sustain pressure on whoever forms the next government to get rid of not just ID cards, not just the ID database but the legislation through which the ID scheme is being built. Repealing the Identity Cards Act 2006 would be a significant step towards rolling back the database state. But our liberty, privacy and personal security are under attack on many other fronts, too.

Please help us now: www.no2id.net/join

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 5th, 2010 at 1:20 pm and is filed under Insanity, NIR.