The rallying cry of the fascist

Earlier this month, a group of Labour MPs—backed by "Labour Together"—publicly endorsed the introduction of a smartphone-based “BritCard.” On Saturday, reports indicated that the government, influenced by Starmer and Yvette Cooper, is “exploring” adopting the BritCard plan to tackle illegal migration and welfare fraud.

Frankly this should come as no surprise given Starmer's authoritarian leanings and the fact that plans for Digital ID have been sitting quietly on the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology's website since the last election.

Slightly more novel, most likely in response to Reform's positions in the polls, is Labour's illegal migration justification - though this too falls neatly into the Statist strategy of utilising crises to legitimise further control of citizens.

Many people think a Digital ID is just your driving licence on a screen. It’s not. It’s your entire life—tax records, medical history, travel movements, social media, employment, purchases—all linked to one scannable profile.

And it’s no coincidence this is being rolled out alongside facial recognition surveillance on high streets up and down the country. With the State now able to match your face to a centralised digital identity in real time, add the inevitable rollout of a CBDC and we’re only months away from automated fines for attending the “wrong” protest, or being in the “wrong” place with the “wrong” people. This isn’t speculation—it’s a blueprint already being tested. What begins as “efficiency” ends as total surveillance.

Labour believe a relinquishing privacy is a price worth paying to clamp down on illegal migration and benefit fraud - "If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide."

For Libertarians, this is a statement of astonishing naivety. It assumes privacy has no intrinsic value, that the State will always have your best interests at heart. It represents the surrender of the meek, the mantra of authoritarians, and the rallying cry of the fascist.