IDENTITY Cards, if introduced, would be a burden on the law abiding, change the relationship between the citizen and the state but do nothing to stop crime and safe guard our borders.
Indeed the idea that they could do so is laughable.
Theanswer to Government failure is, of course,always seen asyet more Government and higher taxes to pay for it.
Illegal migrants swim through the system because the borders are not secure but by magic an ID card would stop them.
Drug dealers, and other undesirables launder money by the billions, once again an is the answer.
Yet this is just displacement activity, a state that is broken seeking to mend itself by doing more, rather trying to do what it is meant to do well.
if introduced, would be a burden on the law abiding, change the relationship between the citizen and the State but do nothing to stop crime and safe guard our borders.
Indeed the idea that they could do so is laughable.
Remember illegal migrants are illegal. They work for people who do not dutifully fill out PAYE returns and they rent property from exploitative landlords.
It is already the case thathonest businesses, which are the vast majority, have to go through expensive administrative hoops to check up on their employees, likewise landlords with their tenants, but these make no difference.
People who employ illegals or who let them property do not care, and because they operate outside the law they pay less and charge more for the service, making the most out of the failures of the migration system.
Additional checks merely put up the profit margins of those who disobey the law and reduce them for those who obey it, they do not begin to solve the problems.
Consider the tented village in Park Lane in the very centre of London, last year it was at the north end near Marble Arch but it was cleared in an act of bold leadership by the authorities.
It has now popped back up at the south end near Hyde Park Corner. A remarkable success for the government.
None of them would have anso if arrested what would the authorities do?
It certainly would not deport them because our deportation ratios are feeble andexcuses allow illegal entrants to stay for the most spurious reasons.
Foreigners in this country are meant to have an ID card anyway – it is called a passport. But those who are here illegally dispose of them as without a clear country of origin them it is harder to be sent home.
ID cards, while making no difference for criminals, would be a burden on the law abiding.
First of all there would be an additional cost because they would have to be paid for and this would come in the form of extra taxation, but it is not just the cost.
Theis a reminder of what happens when the UK adopts a continental style ‘show me your papers’ attitude.
Some people were even removed from this country who were found to have been here legally and had been for decades.
The hostile environment policy turned out to be hostile for His Majesty’s subjects but not for criminals.
AJP Taylor, one of the last century’s most famous historians, said that ‘Until August 1914 a sensible, law abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the State, beyond the Post Office and the policeman’.
This was the foundation of freedom; law abiding people would not be bothered by the State and would not have to prove who they are or be asked about what they are doing by the authorities.
In the UK we do not have to register with the police where we spend the night and we do not even need to show our driving licence if stopped for an alleged motoring offence, there is a seven day window in which to do so.
The State has limited powers over what we do.
The argument for identity cards says that if we are innocent then we have nothing to fear, but that is not true.
Inconvenience and intrusion have increased in recent years, as successive Governments have tried to increase their control of individual lives.
This reached a peak during Covid when limits were put on people’s shopping and outdoor exercise.
These onerous rules would have been easier to enforce draconianly if ID cards had then been compulsory.
Track and Trace was fortunately useless but it would have been able to follow our every move with ID cards being registered wherever we went.
As we now know that was excessive, went on too long, damaged the economy and made little difference to the end result, thank goodness the did not have this additional power.
To stop crime and reduce illegal migration a range of different policies are needed.
We need to pull out of the Refugee Convention and the one on
We need a Government that is willing to be tough.
Donald Trump has managed to reduce illegal entries in April by 91 per cent, not by ID cards but by effective action.
Britain is broken, swathes of public services do not work.
This is the fault of the constitutional settlement that has stymied decision making.
It is not the fault of the hard pressed, over taxed, honest citizen who does not need to prove who he is or worse still pay for the privilege.
