Mandatory ID cards are not the answer.

The government is consumed by national debt, infighting and scandal — and their answer? Mandatory ID cards. 

I am strongly opposed to this. We are a free country. If you go about your business and break no laws, the state has no right to demand your identity on a whim. 

Just look at what’s happened in China. Since the 1980s, ID cards were sold to the public as measures against identity theft and money laundering. Now they are becoming fully digital and essential for everyday activities including applying for a job, buying a SIM card or renting a flat. This puts vast powers of surveillance into the hands of the state. If citizens behave in ways in which their Communist Party government disapproves, their access to housing or healthcare can be restricted, they can be prevented from travelling, and their children can be banned from popular schools. 

Labour claim that IDs will stop people from getting a house or a job when they shouldn’t. But they are wrong as these checks are already being made. 

ID cards will do nothing to stop illegal immigration either. 

Somehow, Labour have found the cash to place more controls on our lives at a time when they are hammering families, employers, farmers and pensioners.

Compulsory ID cards are wrong on so many levels. They are overreach, un-British, and nothing more than a gimmick. I will fight them all the way.