Carmichael condemns ID card scheme
The idea of introducing digital ID cards for adults across the UK has been condemned.
Isles MP Alistair Carmichael has spoken after national media reports that Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was expected to announce plans for the controversial scheme.
Plans for a digital ID project did not feature in Labour's election manifesto last year, and the government has previously rejected a proposal for digital ID suggested by former Labour Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair.
The previous attempt by Labour to introduce ID cards under Tony Blair was ultimately blocked by Liberal Democrats in government.
Mr Carmichael said: “We have a long-standing principle that people have a basic right to live their lives free of interference, as long as we are not doing harm to anyone else.
"That basic right would be turned on its head by mandatory ID cards.
"Participating in our society and our public services would become not a right but a privilege, bestowed on us by the state – just so long as we do as we are told.
“To concede that our freedoms are a privilege given by the government, rather than ours by default, would be to rewrite entirely the relationship between the citizen and the state.
"In a world in which constitutional frameworks and civil liberties are under attack from all sides that strikes me as an inherently risky proposition.
“Nigel Farage is already talking this week about revoking the settled rights of people who have lived here legally for years and in some cases decades.
Imagine a Farage-led Reform government with the ability to examine and control the movement, the identities and the rights of citizens and legal residents of our country.
“The Afghan data leak just months ago shows the risks in trusting our government too far with our identities. I cannot agree to any such ID card mandate and shall be working with colleagues to resist it.”