Glenda Jackson MP wants to see a nationwide protest against her party’s plans to introduce identity cards

Amongst the myriad of proposed legislation in the Queen’s Speech, the most controversial have emanated from the Home Office.
Despite the government’s justifiably proud boast that crime has fallen – we have more police officers than ever before, more funding for community support officers and Asbos making a real impact in reducing vandalism and other unacceptable behaviour – so many Home Office bills give the impression of a country constantly cowering in fear.
The threat of terrorism is real, organised crime, no less so, but will identity cards really remove the threats, reduce the crime? They haven’t in Spain, Turkey, France, Germany or Italy to name but five.
Indeed, the forging of cards and other official documents, such as passports, is an international criminal activity.
The government has pinned its faith on the impossibility of forging their version of ID cards to what is known as biometric verification.
Simply, that means identity read by machine. We will be acknowledged to be the individual our ID card says we are by the matching of eye or thumb print.
Our image will also be on the card, as will other information, all held on a central computer, in a place yet to be named under the authority of a National Identity Scheme Commission appointed by the home secretary.
The cost of setting up such a scheme has expanded from the Home Office’s initial estimate of £3 billion to approximately £5 billion and some analysts put the cost even higher. Given the government’s lamentable record in the field of computer technology – passports, Child Support Agency, benefits, Criminal Records Bureau, all late, all over budget and initially unfit for purpose, these higher figures will probably be right.
Concerns have already been expressed that such cards will fundamentally shift the balance of power away from the individual to the state, that it sweeps away the safeguard enshrined in the Magna Carta, that we are innocent until proven guilty.
This aspect has caused anxiety amongst ethnic minority groups based on their harsh experience of the old ‘suss’ laws. They were, undoubtedly, stopped and questioned disproportionately to the rest of British citizens, so it’s hardly fantasy on their part to see ID cards as placing them, yet again, in the invidious position of being checked, not for any other reason than how they may look, sound, seem different.
And this is what I find most concerning about ID cards.
We should be proud of being a society that welcomes and is enriched by ethnic diversity, but in all probability it will be those from ethnic minorities who are more frequently required to produce these cards on demand.
Difference which we should celebrate will essentially be seen as dubious and these cards face the real danger of being used with a Thatcher’s ‘them and us’ mentality.
If, as I believe is inevitable, we can be denied public services, health, benefits, housing, employment, if we cannot produce these cards, the possibility of creating real social conflict becomes greater, not less.
We are improving waiting times in the NHS, but if failure to produce a card means you lose an appointment, so much for targets. The 9/11 terrorists had identities that were checked. Another piece of plastic, however technologically advanced, wouldn’t have saved the Twin Towers, not least because there was so much information, no one could separate the wheat from the chaff.
Credit card fraud has never been higher.
Will another card really be impossible to replicate?
And surely, if a government really takes seriously its responsibility to keep us all safe, they shouldn’t have created an unnecessary, immoral and illegal war.
The debate on the Identity Bill has begun in the house. Let’s hope it now gets going in the country and the country decides to say no.
• Glenda Jackson is the Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate