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“Papers please!” Those words strike terror in a thousand war movies. Stasi or Gestapo officers are a breed apart from the unarmed plod who demands no ID cards from free British people. So when the 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 needed to fight off the ever-rising threat of Nigel Farage’s Reform.
Look to Labour Together, the thinktank closest to government, which has just published a paper calling for a digital ID system – a “verifiable digital credential downloaded onto a user’s smartphone, which could be instantly checked by employers or landlords using a free verifier app”. One of its main virtues is simplification. There are currently 191 ways to set up accounts and access services on gov.uk, with 44 sign-in methods. A universal ID is popular: More in Common finds 53% in favour, with 25% strongly in favour and only 19% against, backed by a majority of supporters of Labour, the Tories, the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK, and across all ages.
The co-author of the foreword to the report, the Rother Valley MP Jake Richards, talks in terms of “the citizen taking back control of their own data and public services”. One portal, no more forgotten passwords, simple, safe, everything in one place for everyone. What’s not to like? Some will protest at the apparent loss of a romantic freedom, the right to vanish and start life anew, the call of the open road. But that’s a fairytale, a fantasy of a bygone era. Everyone knows everything already. As Richards puts it to me: “Last night I drank a Guinness. This morning I’m getting ads for Guinness.” The algorithms catch us already everywhere. Buy a lampshade and lampshades chase you all over the internet (which suggests algorithmic cluelessness: I’ve already bought that lampshade). You may restrict what you let out, but AI will find you, assessing your age and address from a host of databases. Better to control everything from one government-run base.
It seems clear to me that the report is fundamentally about immigration – Labour wants to make it easier to identify people with no right to live here or claim public services. 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 a flat or using public services near impossible without one. Curbing benefit fraud is also cited as another argument in favour by poll respondents in the report; with ID cards for all claimants, those ever-suspicious of benefit cheats, despite the very low fraud levels at just 2.2%, might be reassured. ID cards, designed to guard borders, could calm some alarm at migration among those who wildly overestimate the numbers arriving undocumented.
The report forcefully labels it the “BritCard”, the first of its kind since the second world war. With a groundswell of support among the new cohort of Labour MPs, Richards says it’s not just red wallers in favour, but everyone who’s alarmed by Reform’s frightening advance. Former home secretaries back it – Alan Johnson, David Blunkett, Charles Clarke, Jack Straw, Amber Rudd, plus William Hague. Tony Blair has always advocated it, with a tortured history of trying to introduce a plastic “entitlement” card. First tried in 2003, the idea was backed by the Met police commissioner, who called it an “absolutely essential” tool in the war against terrorism. By 2010 it was briefly available to some, but abolished by the incoming coalition government.
The cost was a killer: £85 for a combined card and passport. This time a universal digital ID would be free, say its promoters. The authors would make it mandatory – Jake Richards wouldn’t. But that may make little difference once it became near-impossible to access anything without it. Real risks need to be resolved first, as a computer rejecting you unjustly would cut off access to everything. The Home Office would have to improve radically, given its track record. We cannot forget that some Windrush victims are still waiting for compensation while others dare not approach the untrusted Home Office, source of their trauma. Any system would need cast-iron guarantees that being denied services on the basis of not having a valid BritCard would be dealt with instantly by senior enough officials to make robust decisions with rapid appeal to courts 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. Adjudicating who is entitled to be here is the state’s first duty, controlling who shares in a democracy and the public services that voters pay into. ID cards are a social democratic cause, because they help define security not only as border controls for who comes in, but as the right for everyone here to share in our mutual social security.
In truth this is a political rebranding of what’s happening already. E-visas are rolling out to all foreign residents, with the existing One Login and gov.uk Wallet doing the same digital identity work. Make it one ID system and the government can claim the political credit. Its promoters relish a public fight with civil liberties and privacy groups to prove Labour’s seriousness about national identity.
Watch the dash to leave the European convention on human rights (ECHR), promoted by the now near-identical Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage. Labour will rightly have none of it. No 10 is not yet committed on digital ID cards – but lest anyone think Labour lacks a pride and purpose when it comes to British identity, this is the time to bring in ID cards to endow everyone with proof of their national rights.
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Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
