| 1 | 1 | | The Daily Mail frequently prints what we would not recognise as the truth, but its |
| 2 | | sources in the Conservative Party are impeccable. Accordingly, when it reports that the |
| 3 | | Home Secretary, Kenneth Baker, intends to introduce compulsory identity cards as part of |
| 4 | | the fight against illegal immigration, we must assume that it is not making the whole thing |
| 5 | | up - notwithstanding Mr Baker's subsequent denial. |
| 2 | 6 | | The denial, when it came, was less forthright than previous government statements |
| 7 | | on the subject. There was no 'immediate' need for identity cards, Baker said, but 'things |
| 8 | | may change'. 'Identity cards are not as controversial as they would have been 20 years |
| 9 | | ago,' he added. |
| 3 | 10 | | But 20 years ago, Britain still retained the memory of wartime identity cards, which |
| 11 | | lingered on until 1952. The cards were understandably unpopular. As New Statesman |
| 12 | | journalist and former police chief inspector, C.H. Rolph, recalled: 'The police, who had by |
| 13 | | now got used to the exciting new belief that they could get anyone's address for the asking, |
| 14 | | went on asking to see them with increasing frequency. If you picked up a fountain pen in |
| 15 | | the street and handed it to a constable, he would ask to see your identity card in order that |
| 16 | | he might record your name as that of an honest citizen. You seldom carried it; and th is |
| 17 | | meant that he had to give you a little pencilled slip requiring you to produce it at a police |
| 18 | | station within two days.' |
| 4 | 19 | | In 1952, of course, the record made by the constable would have been kept on the |
| 20 | | local station's card index. Now it would be more likely to be fed into the Police National |
| 21 | | Computer, or to the new National Criminal Intelligence Service, opening for business this |
| 22 | | year. In 1952, Britain did not have a significant black population, young people were not |
| 23 | | disaffected with the police, and there was no political class that saw itself as permanently |
| 24 | | dissident. Compulsory identity cards, if introduced now, would be more unpopular than |
| 25 | | last time round - at any rate, among those sections of society at which they would be |
| 26 | | targeted, which is to say young and black people. |
| 5 | 27 | | One need only look at the rest of Europe to see what might He ahead. In Germany, |
| 28 | | which is introducing machine-readable cards despite popular opposition, people on their |
| 29 | | way to demonstrations have been stopped and their identity numbers noted. In Spain, |
| 30 | | young people similarly believe that the police abuse the system. In Turkey, rumour has it |
| 31 | | that the cards of ex-political prisoners are specially coded. |
| 6 | 32 | | It is hard to discern exactly what lies behind the Mail story and the Baker denial. It |
| 33 | | is no secret that the government believes that the EC's plan for open internal borders and |
| 34 | | a common immigration policy would lead to our isle being overrun by dark-skinned |
| 35 | | hordes. It is no secret either that the EC is looking at 'compensatory measures', like |
| 36 | | identity cards. The argument may emerge from the government that identity cards are yet |
| 37 | | another alien notion to be forced on us by Eurocrats who can't understand the British way |
| 38 | | of doing things. But a sneaking suspicion remains that the best possible outcome, from the |
| 39 | | British government's point of view, would be to get the compensatory measures, without |
| 40 | | anything to have to compensate for. |
| | | |
| | | from 'New Statesman & Society', January 3, 1992 |
