In late September, Keir Starmer unveiled his plans for a mandatory digital ID scheme, the so-called ‘Brit Card’, which will require all UK residents with a legal right to work to hold a government-issued digital ID card.
By Matt Kilsby
The card is intended to be used by employers and landlords to verify our rights to work and rent, and eventually to access benefits, council services, health care, etc.
Right-wing Blairites have long held an obsession with ID cards, and it is unsurprising that Starmer has dusted off Tony Blair’s 2006 attempt to introduce them, as part of his authoritarian and rightward lurch since becoming Prime Minister last July.
The Brit Card, together with the rise of Reform UK, should be viewed in the context of an international turn to authoritarianism by the ruling capitalist class, which is indicative of the world of disorder and a system that is in a deep crisis. As the old order of neoliberal globalisation pulls apart, so the ruling class turns to authoritarian measures to maintain ‘national security’ and prop up national self-interest.
While the Brit Card announcement might not be surprising, the main thrust behind it was to further attack and demonise migrants and refugees as an attempt to outflank Reform UK to the right, which is particularly depraved. However, within 24 hours, more than a million and a half people had signed an online petition in opposition, making it clear that it is hugely unpopular on both the left and the libertarian right. At the time of writing, the petition has almost 2.9 million signatures. All this proves perfectly the bankruptcy of the Blairite policies of pandering to the right and aping their politics, which has been horribly perpetuated by Starmer and co.
Big Brother
The Tony Blair Institute has calculated that the Brit Card scheme will cost £1 billion, with additional running costs of £100 million per year to private IT contractors. This is a colossal cost, at the same time as millions of working-class people struggle to make ends meet, and the disgraceful two-child benefit cap has still not been scrapped.
Socialists must oppose mandatory digital ID, but not just because of the cost: it’s a direct attack on civil liberties and privacy, and will mean a ‘Big Brother’ state in which the authorities have more ability to monitor our lives. The scheme will also result in the state holding huge amounts of our personal data. There can be no faith that it will be kept secure, given the government’s track record of expensive IT failures. The recent cyberattack that shut down production at Jaguar Land Rover shows just how vulnerable our computer systems are.
Just like when Blair’s first attempt at ID cards was abandoned in 2010 after huge opposition, so too can this new scheme be stopped. And this time around, Starmer is deeply unpopular and presiding over a weak and divided government. Socialists demand for the scheme to be scrapped immediately and for an end to attacks on migrants and refugees.
Everyone must have a right to work, including refugees and asylum seekers. And access to healthcare, housing, benefits and public services must be available to everyone, and not restricted by the undemocratic and authoritarian ‘Brit Card’.
