05-10-2025: Amidst a collapsing British economy and a relentless drive to a senseless war, UK (United Kingdom) Prime Minister (PM) Keir Starmer is launching a digital identification (ID) scheme to be called “Brit Card”. The digital ID is slated to be mandatory for all UK citizens and would be required to be able to engage in paid employment – no digital ID, no work. In time, the government has indicated it could be used by landlords, to access banking and public services such as welfare and housing.[1] Stretching the bounds of rationality, it is also suggested that the Brit Card is a measure which will hold back illegal immigration. Green Party leader Zack Polanski wrote that the government is doing nothing about the cost of living crisis, the climate crisis or the genocide in Gaza, but is mandating that people carry Brit Cards – demonstrating how out of touch and increasingly authoritarian it has become.[2] The UK Labour government may not be able to force this measure through, as public opposition is already underway. As of the 29th of September, almost 2.5 million had signed an online petition against the Brit Card.[3]
Digital nightmare
The notorious Tony Blair first attempted to introduce ID cards in the late 90s in the UK as then Labour Party PM. The former PM is known for his infamous warmongering in vigorously pursuing the invasion and war on Iraq in 2003. Now the Tony Blair Institute is back and pushing a digital ID, releasing the report “Governing in the Age of AI: Building Britain’s National Data Library”. This came two weeks after Blair met with Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison at the World Governments Summit in Dubai.[4] There are many reasons to fear a Blair-Starmer enforced digital ID, as there are multiple human rights concerns about the consolidation and linking of information and databases across not only government, but banking and financial services and corporations. Forcing everyone to carry a digital ID is likely to exclude many older people, who may not use a smartphone. It may also set up conditions which will exacerbate racial profiling by targeting ethnic minorities. It will create a huge risk for identity theft and will attract hackers and online criminals. It may also create a black market in the production of fake Brit Cards.
In Australia, Section 74 of the Digital ID Act 2024, creating and using a digital ID is voluntary. Businesses and government agencies must currently provide alternate methods for citizens to access their services – such as traditional methods by presenting a passport or drivers’ licence.[5] Or at least, this is how it stands at the moment. However, the Albanese Labor Party federal government, with the backing of the Liberal Party “opposition”, is forging ahead with the tyrannical social media ban for those aged under 16. No other government in the world is attempting such a draconian measure, which arrives on December the 10th. To use social media, Australian citizens will need to use facial recognition technology to use social media, or access online pornography. This measure is NOT at all designed to protect children. The state is attempting to design a system to retain the names and addresses of anyone who criticises the government online. It is arguably the most totalitarian nightmarish measure of control ever imposed.
Division and exclusion
A digital ID may well re-create the horrendous discrimination experienced by millions during the fraudulent “Covid pandemic”. During that time, the introduction of vaccine passports – a register of those who had supposedly taken at least two shots of a potentially deadly vaccine – immediately set up a two-tier society. People who resisted staggering levels of propaganda by opting not to receive a dubious medical procedure began to be excluded from bars, concerts, sporting events and more. A digital ID could easily be used to exclude those who opt out from huge parts of society. One could argue that for a brief period during Covid, a form of racism was implemented against the unvaccinated. There was certainly a storm of denunciation against those who protested against vaccine mandates and lockdowns. In Canada, some truckers and their supporters who led an epic protest against vaccine mandates had their bank accounts frozen by the government. A digital ID with linked banking information could very easily be used by the government or by a corporation collaborating with the government to “de-bank” anyone who dissents from a mainstream narrative, let alone those who speak out against government overreach.
Working people may wonder why many Western governments are imposing more and more repression against “their own” citizens – from vaccine mandates, to lockdowns, to facemask mandates, to border closures during Covid – to digital ID and constant erosion of free speech and the right to protest, albeit selectively. Why are basic civil liberties and basic rights being whittled away or abolished entirely? To this we must answer that the longer capitalism survives, the more repressive the capitalist state must become. At a certain point in history, the advance of capitalism over feudalism did increase democratic rights, legal rights and civil rights. Parliaments were at one point a step forward, Unions were established, and this led to political parties being formed. These were gains for working people, and these avenues were used by the masses to advance their material interests. Yet capitalism in the 21st century is today in a state of potentially terminal decline. If it is to survive, it cannot allow the rights it once championed.
Censorship and surveillance does not now come about only because the technology now exists to make it easy. Imperialism is today facing a potential “end of days” scenario, as it is being challenged by a rising Eurasian bloc with firm alliances and allegiances with the Global South – the overwhelming majority of humanity. US imperialism and its European allies today represent about 10% of the global population. The other 90% of the world’s population support, actively or passively, a shift toward multipolarity and a world where co-operation between nations and states is the norm. The non-imperialist BRICS bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa plus 15 other states) is a part of this historic drive. To be sure, a digital ID in itself may be useful and may be more convenient in some circumstances. But in the hands of Western capitalist governments in an advanced state of decay, a digital ID will almost certainly be used for suppression, surveillance, division and exclusion. A real and genuine socialism is the only antidote to an outdated and crumbling system, and working people must build it. NO TO DIGITAL ID!
Workers League
E: workersleague@protonmail.com
[1] www.thinkdigitalpartners.com/news/2025/09/26/starmer-unveils-mandatory-digital-id-plans/ (01-10-2025)
[2] www.indy100.com/news/brit-card-digital-id-explained (01-10-2025)
[3] www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2025/09/29/the-blair-institute-is-here-to-manufacture-consent-for-digital-ids/ (01-10-2025)
[4] www.sociable.co/government-and-policy/blair-digital-id-national-data-library/ (01-10-2025)
[5] www.constitutionwatch.com.au/are-digital-i-d-s-compulsory/ (01-10-2025)
Red Fire 