Labour’s Yvette Cooper wants a new digital identification process to help crack down on illegal migration in Britain, she announced on Tuesday, June 3rd.
The proposal, Cooper claims, would allow her government to work out who is in Britain legally. If delivered, such a system would oblige law-abiding holders of e-visas (which already exist) to submit to a more onerous process. People in the country illegally would be unable to provide equivalent documentation, hypothetically.
The scheme has already been condemned as ‘Orwellian,’ since its bid to curb surging illegal migrant numbers would involve a shift to the type of ‘papers, please’ society the British public has long resisted.
Civil rights campaigner Alan Miller of Together Declaration—who is on record as stating that in Britain, “the idea that we have a discriminatory two-tiered society where we have security guards asking people for some of the most sensitive information was just too much”—backs opposition to such plans, declaring:
If we don’t shape the digital future—who will?
Previously, Cooper herself has opposed similar proposals.
