Unlike many Lib Dems I came to politics relatively late in life, but opposition to ID cards, along with the Iraq war, were absolutely key to my “Tony Blair made me a Liberal Democrat” political origin story. So you can imagine my surprise to wake up on Sunday to a BBC website headline telling me “Lib Dems consider ditching opposition to ID cards” and quoting Ed Davey as stating “times have changed”. He’s right, but not in ways that make ID cards more appealing, and none of the fundamental liberal arguments against are changed by inserting the word ‘Digital’ in front of the letters ‘ID’.
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised – after all we saw an article from Lisa Smart here on LDV only a few weeks ago telling us we need to “update our thinking” and then there was a consultation at 8.00 on Sunday morning at Conference that was so well attended it overflowed out into the corridor. A clear majority of the comments in response to Lisa’s article were against ID cards, and while the consultation session had a small number of members speaking in favour, the rest were split between those opposing them outright on principle and those with reservations as to whether they could be implemented in a way that respects our privacy or whether a UK Government could actually successfully deliver such a large IT project. Some would only support them if they weren’t compulsory. As LDV’s Caron reported on Sunday, opposition was expressed most robustly by Alistair Carmichael MP who declared “If I have to bark at the tide on this, I will bark at the f**king tide”. One thing was very clear – there is currently no mandate from the Party’s membership to change our long standing policy of opposing ID cards.
So what problem are Digital ID cards intended to solve? While the Government is likely to pivot to say that they will make it easier to access public services, we should be very clear why they are really doing it – to help crack down on immigration and immigrants working illegally, and to perform that function it will need to be compulsory. Essentially they want to make it easier to identify and round-up ‘undesirable’ people in our country. That should ring alarm bells for every liberal-minded person, because a system that can identify one minority can be used to identify others.
I acknowledge that times have indeed changed. For a start, there is now the real possibility of a Farage-led Reform Government in 2029, and on the same day the BBC reported we might drop our opposition to ID cards they also reported Farage’s plan to deport 600,000 people if he wins power, most of whom are currently here entirely legally. Likewise we also see how Police ‘stop and search’ powers continue to be used disproportionately against the Black population, and concerted efforts to wind back the rights and freedoms of the Trans community in ways that threaten their very identity. We should not entertain any plan that carries the slightest potential of being used as a tool for mass deportations or to identify and persecute minorities.
And yes, I’ve heard the counter-arguments:
1) It’s inevitable, so lets campaign to make it less bad – no, it’s not inevitable. We’ve stopped ID cards from an authoritarian Labour Government before, and we can do it again, by building a coalition of opposition around the simple message of ‘No’. Wasting time debating how best to polish a turd just increases the probability that the Government gets exactly what it wants.
2) But other countries have them, like Estonia – other countries start from a different place to us, usually with written constitutions. The Estonian state was re-established while the memories of Soviet oppression were fresh. We have no written constitution, a Government with entrenched authoritarian instincts, and a state apparatus that craves control without accountability and with a habit of suppressing or obfuscating inconvenient bad news. Boris Johnson showed us the limits of our constitutional constraints, and Farage will push them further given the chance.
3) But I’ve already given my data to Google, Tesco etc – yes, but that was your choice and you can stop, and exercise your GDPR rights to have it deleted.
The perfect liberal ID card scheme is simply not possible within our current state and constitution. And even if it was possible – a non-compulsory ID card that respects our privacy, puts us in control of our data, constrained by guardrails so rigid it could never be extended or abused in the future, then what is it actually for? To provide another way of doing what we can already do, occasionally more easily, but at a cost of £billions that would inevitably be contracted out to the likes of Fujitsu?
So by all means lets reconsider, but I hope we quickly conclude that we were right the first time and that a UK digital ID would be a dangerously illiberal tool we wouldn’t want in the hands of Labour, never mind Reform. In the meantime, I’ll be on the beach with Alistair, barking at the f**king tide.
* Nick Baird is a Lib Dem activist and Chair of the Cheltenham Party. He is writing in a personal capacity.
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32 Comments
I support ID cards provided they can be implemented cost effectively and in a way that is secure from cyberattack etc.
There are people in Britain who have no legal right to be here. I do not want them to be able to access public services, or to work, or to rent property. ID cards, whether physical or digital, would help to achieve those objectives.
If liberals do not effectively control our country’s borders, our fellow citizens will give the responsiblity for doing so to highly illiberal people. We have seen that in the USA with Biden’s deplorable failure to control the USA’s southern border leading to the election of Trump, and we risk seeing that in the UK.
We need to get real about issues such as illegal migration.
@Mohammed Amin – there is already a legal requirement for employers and landlords to perform ‘right to work’ and ‘right to rent’ checks, and these are successfully conducted every day without ID cards. Of course illegal immigrants still find work and places to live from unscrupulous employers and landlords who choose to ignore the law anyway, and they’ll ignore ID cards too.
For public services, it depends. For instance we provide A&E and GP health care to anyone who can show they live in this country, without proving immigration status. You can argue for changing that policy if you like.
But either way, ID cards do not themselves fix those problems.
“Of course illegal immigrants still find work and places to live from unscrupulous employers and landlords who choose to ignore the law anyway, and they’ll ignore ID cards too.”
What’s the difference between a so-called ‘illegal immigrant’ and a genuine refugee who, for good and sufficient personal safety reasons has thrown away their ID card on their journey to the UK if they had one?
@Nonconformistradical – in practice, not much. I would expect a genuine refugee would normally submit a claim for asylum, and I don’t agree with the Government that a refugee claiming asylum is illegal because of their mode of transport, when they refuse to allow an alternative safe route.
@Nonconformistradical
“What’s the difference between a so-called ‘illegal immigrant’ and a genuine refugee…”
Have you not answered that question in your question? An ‘illegal immigrant’ is someone who is in the country without a legal right to be here (whether due to staying in the country beyond the expiring of their permission, or coming here without lawful authority) whereas a ‘genuine refugee’ is someone who has come to the UK to make a genuine claim for asylum (by which I mean, not economic migrants who may claim asylum but just as a tactic to try to stay in the country/delay deportation.)
….a UK digital ID would be a dangerously illiberal tool we wouldn’t want in the hands of Labour, never mind Reform.
Reform don’t seem to want it in their hands either…
‘Farage: Compulsory ID cards ‘will be tool of suppression’ if Labour introduce them – and will do nothing to combat the migrant crisis’ [September 2025]:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15071321/Farage-Compulsory-ID-cards.html
As the BBC is now reporting that Keir Starmer will announce the introduction of compulsory digital ID cards tomorrow, we need to hold the feet of our Parliamentary leadership to the fire and make it clear to them that as Liberals we will not accept it and would abolish it if we gained power. Starmer may be able to push it through the Commons with his massive majority but, as it was not in the Labour GE manifesto, our party in the Lords don’t have to accept it. Let us see if Starmer will use the Parliament Act to force it through because I suspect that there will be many Peers from other Parties and crossbenchers who have similar concerns about Digital ID.
Well said, Nick Baird.
David Howarth, previously Lib Dem MP for Cambridge (2005-2010) and probably the most knowledgeable UK Parliamentarian of the 21st century, has recently written at length about some of the problems with ID cards here, mostly looking at the specific policy challenge of illegal work: https://drhow.substack.com/p/id-cards-on-a-loop?r=2feid8 As is usually the case, he sets out the arguments with clarity and answers them with evidence, principle and courage. Unsurprisingly, he should be listened to, not least because he was one of the voices opposing Blair’s scheme at the time.
Anyone who believes the UK state can introduce a nationwide database that is cost-effective, safe from cyber attacks, with sufficient safeguards to protect citizens from both evil and incompetent governments, and with appropriate alternatives for people who do not have the finances or the faculties to use digital services – well, I have a bridge to sell you.
There are plenty of arguments against the concept of a compulsory digital ID system. David Howarth’s article hihglights most of them. There are a couple more.
First, we all need a National Insurance number to work. That’s on top of the National Health number we were given at birth (if born here), the passport number, the driving licence number, and, for those who have applied, the Government gateway number for HMRC Self-Assessment. Quite how a digital ID system differs from one or any of these is unclear. Integrating the various numbers to a single number sounds like a great idea, until one remembers that it is the UK government that will oversee the process – and we know their record on technology projects.
Second, and more worrying, such a digital ID scheme will become the target for every malevolent hacker, foreign and domestic. Ensuring the scheme’s security will be complex and require major, and ongoing, investment to keep ahead of all threats.
Kier Starmer is falling into the same trap that caught Tony Blair – the belief that, if the Prime Minister says something is going to happen, it will.
@Brenda Will
“whereas a ‘genuine refugee’ is someone who has come to the UK to make a genuine claim for asylum”
How would such a person they are a genuine refugee and prove their identity if, for good reasons, they have thrown away while on the way to the UK any id documents they possessed?
Ref. Tom King’s post:
“Anyone who believes the UK state can introduce a nationwide database that is cost-effective, safe from cyber attacks, with sufficient safeguards to protect citizens from both evil and incompetent governments……………..”
This long-retired IT person is convinced the UK state is incapable of doing so.
To me, an enforced ID system is borderline on dystopian. A database of all your citizens, what data are they going to hold? Voting records? Health data? Shopping history and viewing/browsing habits?
Absolutely not!
Your papers please!!
The problem we face of course that only Mohammed mentions is that we are not in the phase of the political cycle where the electoral split is between those wanting to increase liberties (i.e. us, plus some Labour and some Cameron type Conservatives etc) and those generally wanting to hold the line or push it back (the rest of Labour, a majority of Conservatives etc).
We are now in a battle for the first time in a great many decades with those who want to roll many liberties back a lot and, we are losing that battle quite badly right now in very grave danger of catastrophically losing that battle at the next General Election.
The days when there was no downside to trying to advance and build a more Liberal society are gone, but instead we have to find a line we can defend and if we are serious about that bit of the preamble which says we “exist to build *** and safeguard *** a fair free and open society” we have to consider how to move to ground we can defend when the battle comes and not fight and lose battles on ground we cannot defend.
Overall, we need to consider whether moving to a Lib Dem designed and controlled ID card may be better than losing and getting a Reform designed and controlled system.
@Tom King – thank you, that linked article is well worth a read. David Howarth makes the arguments more eloquently than me!
I used to be against iD cards and, many decades ago, I was a Liberal Party member. But opposition to ID cards in today’s world is crazy. Anyone with a driving licence or other similar has to tick a box agreeing that data can be shared with other Government departments. Shopkeepers can find out dates of birth from Electoral Roll data held by local councils. The names, ages and addresses of everyone classified as ‘vulnerable’ have been handed to local power network providers without individuals’ permission and are then passed on to eg Red Cross: a wonderful list for any local thief to get easily if they are half competent at hacking – or getting a job with the local power network providers. The quantity of voluntary and unavoidable data sharing is utterly different from even ten years ago. People give over all their details to Nectar card, Visa card and a million other cards.
What would be wrong is a PURELY digital card: I need something like my driving licence card. And what needs watching is the state’s demand for any more information than it already has, and limiting the data in the individual’s digital file….. PLEASE Libdems do NOT oppose this – i felt much safer and more free living in Italy knowing that everyone else was required to carry a card!
https://www.markpack.org.uk/175710/digital-id-lib-dems-oppose-labour-plans/
Thank goodness for that.
@Nonconformistradical – thank goodness indeed. But that is only Step One. Step Two is to acknowledge that we shouldn’t waste billions on a non-compulsory ID to add yet another way of doing things we can already do, and kick the whole thing into touch.
Have long opposed this but now it is worth considering. Many people have a knee jerk response in opposing but there are many advantages in fighting crime and many who want to rejoin the EU will have to accept the direction of travel. Ironic that SirEd and Farage on the same side after his speech telling how different we are!
Should the Liberal Democrats back ID cards I would certainly resign my 50 year membership. I cannot think of many ideas more illiberal. In the 1950s it was the Liberals who fought to end ID cards…just where has our philosophy and values gone?
“I support ID cards provided they can be implemented cost effectively and in a way that is secure from cyberattack etc”
So you oppose them then.
But welcome news from Mark. Does pose the question why Lisa Smart went so publicly “on manouvres” at party conference though…..
I am against this we don’t all have the technology smart phones or passports either. I would rather be asked to get one of them.
No-one should be allowed in country without a passport just like we can’t go abroad without one, it shouldn’t make it difficult for those here struggling to make ends meet .
We all know where this starts – basic information to access services is all that it’s intended for .. We all know where this will end up … Compulsory carrying of a piece of plastic that any jumped up official can demand to see … Draconian illeberal & goes against everything the party has ever stood for…
At a time when Reform are rightly being challenged on policy – Labour resurrect this dead duck …Whoever is advising Labour really needs to take a extended vacation for 4 years
Compulsory digital ID cards would be a bad idea. They would not be popular in Northern Ireland as they conflict with the Good Friday Agreement. Folk do not want Brit cards, if they are Irish like me. Besides we have Irish Passports, I have a Irish birth certificate from Dublin. These ID cards can be easily cloned, forged, altered, they would not be secure at all, given the amount of cybercrime going on. I see SF may bring a judicial review on them.
I don’t know what all the fuss is about with ID cards as long as used appropiriately. Promoting it as something to stop illegal working is slightly sick though. It will simplify things. We already have ID, NI number, NHS number ….. and you caon’t leave the country without a passport LOL!
Hi Peter,
I can understand your massive worry if we reconsider, but I would urge us all to consider things in the light of the new reality. Currently support for Liberal Democracy is being beaten into a pulp not just in the UK but across much of the claimed democratic world as well – Mainly because of its failure to ensure that society as a whole reaped a share of the benefits.
Instead manual workers found Blair’s immigration free for all was simply a means to suppress their wages, while technology undermined clerical and middle management, and offshoring carbon emissions led to loss of well paid jobs, ultimately leaving them at best coming out about level and often down due to erosion of benefits like pensions. Shareholders and people with assets made a killing, but over time the proportion of society they represent has fallen and now they are only 25% of the population.
We, centre left Labour and One Nation Conservatives are in line for a rude awakening in 2029, especially if Corbyn’s party splits the left and Reform sweeps the Cons to near oblivion.
In all likelihood, Farage will soon blame Labour for lack of progress on the ID cards system and do a reverse ferret by claiming only he can fix it.
We can’t afford to be dogmatic on things we don’t like when we don’t have any solution to an issue that is mainly faced by other people.
Labourism is unfit to govern. They were elected by only one third of voters and do not have democratic legitimacy. They are totally unprogeessive. Lib Dems should never seek or want to prop them up. They are re treads of a bygone age.
We should learn to distinguish between ID Cards and a digital identity.
The former could be an instrument of a police state and suppression.
The latter can aid more effective and efficient interaction with the state and financial institutions.
We should support the latter with safeguards for those who cannot manage and fight against any compulsory carrying of cards and have it embedded within our fundamental rights.
For those who doubt the UKs ability to implement such a scheme we can look to many examples where the schemes work, Estonia, Denmark, Australia and now India. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
We live in a state that has high levels of CCTV in most of its large towns and cities and where the police use digital recognition techniques. There are also too many examples of innocent people being held by the police without good reason for too long.
40 years ago I would have opposed any form of ID card. Now I have a driving licence in my wallet and countless other forms of digital ID on my phone.
A digital ID card changes very little, but it does allow the police and others to do there job much more efficiently. That can only be good news for those that live by the rules of our society, and bad news for those that operate without them. A digital ID card can actually help to preserve our freedoms from the risk of more draconian actions by future governments.
The opposition from Farage and the Conservatives seems likely to be strong, and that will only increase the ability of Starmer to gather up the votes of his own MPs and implement what will be a popular measure. Our role should be to engage constructively to ensure that the project is appropriately resourced and that the controls around the system are the best in the world.
On top of all the other observations that a digital id will not be a panacea…
The government says it will be “free” – whose money are they going to develop this system with?
How many big government projects cost what they initially justify?
How many deliver all the benefits initially promised?
How many “false negatives “ will happen because “the system says no”.
We need to stop trying to out-Reform Reform/Farage.
More investment is required in local communities all over the country rather than these big, grand, headline vanity (or desperation) projects.
Anyone supporting id cards…look at Trump’s America and look at what is happening to non-white, non-Republican citizens…
This is a bad idea that should be opposed on principle.
But another problem with Digital ID is that not everybody, including me, has a smartphone. According to online sources one source says 90% own a smartphone another sources say 4.5 million adults don’t own one. Either way this is a major issue.
Looking on Digital ID scheme: explainer on Gov.UK it says that “physical alternatives are available for those without smartphones” I believe that when I see it.
Also Digital ID scheme: explainer on Gov.UK say that a photo will be included on the data base. That’s fine if you have a driving license or passport but what about those who dont?
We should be asking what liberal changes we need to make to government information architecture . I would suggest the following:
Restrict access so that the minimum number of individual state employees can view only the information they require to make decisions that require human intervention.
All interaction with government that involves personal data requires reliable identification. Current best practice is multi-factor identification. Individuals should be able to choose these factors according to their abilities and technical access. Those of us with multiple devices could use them to maximise security. Those that don’t should have other methods available including the ability to present themselves at local government facilities and get help.
External bodies that are required to check on individuals should be granted access to information only when requested by the subject. E.g. I could log on to my own secure account and request that a vendor’s solicitor be notified that I am who I say I am and am allowed to buy a house. The information required to verify this would never be in the hands of the solicitor and no individual in government would need to see it.
Data flow should be automated wherever possible. This not only makes government cheaper (in the long run) but it reduces data visibility and arbitary abuse of power by state employees. I’m referring to hard logic processes. ‘AI’ is more problematic. It can be useful in helping humans do their job but it can also reinforce bias.
David Howarth’s substack article cuts to the chase by asking what problem is this designed to solve? And his answer is clear, if it is illegal employment then it offers nothing that is not there already for non British or Irish citizens. And he notes that France, with ID cards, has a bigger problem with illegal working than the UK.
Before coming to this debate I and many friends and family who have discussed the issue in the past weeks have generally been pretty ambivalent. The fact that almost all EU countries have a form of ID card, that we all have submitted our data to the gods of mammon anyway, are powerful arguments to just accept this as a logical step. Thanks then to all those who have reminded me of why they are an unnecessary nonsense.
We should oppose them loudly, with the sort of pragmatic arguments that David Howarth makes, including the very real fear that any government IT project on this scale is doomed to escalating costs and near certain failure if past performance is any guide.
>” …what problem is this designed to solve?”
Just going off on a bit of a tangent, but, if the majority of EU members have ID cards, could ID cards (and EU aligned to permit data exchange) be one of the preconditions of membership. Yes we know, that a passport in this instance serves the same purpose (ie. My UK passport automatically gave me the right to work in any EU country without first having to get a work permit.)
So the problem being solved may not necessarily directly to do with the portrayed use of the ID card.