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So Keir Starmer, elected a year ago with a laughable 20% of the electorate supporting his party thinks its time to demand a “papers please” (the state and its agents rarely say please, for the record) state, at the same time as they crack down on freedom of expression, protest and internet use.

They claim this will prevent illegal immigrants working, “taking jobs from the British”. In return, we must all surrender our right not to have to comply with excessive state intrusion into our lives.

The UK does not have a national ID card and firmly rejected the attempts by Tony Blair to force these upon the population – perhaps one of the few things the former Conservative Government got right during its 14 years of misery.

The UK did have national ID cards during World War Two, these were not linked to mass surveillance systems as they simply did not exist then, they did not have a huge online database, ripe for exploitation and abuse and were rightly, if belatedly, repealed after Harry Willock challenged this in court in the 1950s, with the judge remarking (my emphasis):

“This Act was passed for security purposes; it was never passed for the purposes for which it is now apparently being used. To use Acts of Parliament passed for particular purposes in wartime when the war is a thing of the past—except for the technicality that a state of war exists—tends to turn law-abiding subjects into lawbreakers, which is a most undesirable state of affairs. Further, in this country we have always prided ourselves on the good feeling that exists between the police and the public, and such action tends to make the people resentful of the acts of the police, and inclines them to obstruct the police instead of assisting them. For these reasons I hope that if a similar case comes before any other bench of justices, they will deal with it as did the Highgate bench and grant the defendant an absolute discharge, except where there is a real reason for demanding sight of the registration card.”

And here we are, with Tony Blair’s pet poodle in Downing Street, digging up the corpse of an unwelcome policy, insisting we all comply, by force of law.

It is clearly time that politicians are reminded who serves whom. Hint: It is not the duty of the public to comply with the whims of politicians, nor is there any electoral mandate for this policy or, for that matter, this government.

Benjamin Franklin famously said “Those who would give up Essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety” – he was right and this has been my long held philosophy.

It won’t be changed by Keir Starmer or whatever other soulless creature inevitably replaces him before this rotten Parliament is finally put out of our misery.

The path is quite clear:

• Force the public to comply with legislation they never voted for and did not ask for by threat of being unable to earn an income or acquire housing.
• Indicate it is to resolve a pressing matter of the day, in this case, Starmer has decided to pick on migrants as the reason – be under no illusion, if there was another matter that a significant proportion of the population was incensed about, they would shoe-horn that into their argument. I won’t even get into the obvious ineffectual nature of this particular claim.
• Mission creep and link it to all manner of interactions with the state and other organisations. What’s that, you want to access a website? ID NOW! There you go, your right to privacy gone in an instant.

In a society we often have to accept things we personally dislike for the greater good – there is no greater good here.

We have to accept that our peers have voted in a government with a mandate to provide specific policies, there is no mandate here.

We have to look at the arguments made in favour and form our own views as to the validity and credibility of those arguments. These are risible, sub-GCSE debating society arguments which are ripped to shreds with even a cursory examination.

Given that, it is clear that the stated reason is not why these are being floated again. They are a perennial favourite of Tony Blair and we know has been working behind the scenes with the likes of Morgan McSweeney, Mandelson and Starmer to pull the strings of this government.

You, I and everyone else do not owe this government or these rotten individuals compliance with anything they attempt to force upon us. This country has a proud tradition of refusing to comply with state overreach, be that the Chartists, the Suffragettes, Conscientious Objectors in WW1 and WW2, the Poll Tax rebels (i happen to think the poll tax was fairer than Council Tax but that’s another matter).

We do not just idly sit by and shrug our shoulders when the state oversteps the mark. We stand up for ourselves, we reflect our values back on those ostensibly “in charge” and say “NO”.

To that end, I will 100% absolutely refuse to be dictated to by this government or any future government on this matter.

I do not owe the state my identity papers except in specific cases, such as proving my eligibility to drive (this is for the greater good) and for border control (which, incidentally, did not exist in times gone by, but is now well established).

I will not comply. I will not engage. Come what may.

Keir – you were elected in 2024 because the nation wanted the Tories out, not you, in.

There were 48,208,743 registered voters in this nation at that time.

You acquired the support of 9,708,716 of them – 20.1% – in other words, 1 in five people eligible to vote gave you their support.

This is, in absolute terms, lower than Jeremy Corbyn got when he lost the election in 2019. You have no mandate, no credibility and no right to dictate a god-damned thing to any of us.

It’s time for you to go.