The National ID Card controversy wasn't simply about a photo-ID card (as noted, UK driving licenses are biometric photo-ID cards—and have been since before the NID was mooted). The real problem was the integration of a National Identity Register, a universal biometric ID database storing numerous non-essential items that was to act as a central authentication point for access to all government (and many corporate) services. Failure to register was to be a criminal offense (in US terms, a felony); failure to update within a week of changing address, ditto (don't ask how this would work for the homeless, or for students and workers living away from home part-time): it was to be carried at all times on pain of a hefty fine: changes to your address had to be reflected in a new physical card (which would be charged for): and a whole bunch more stuff.
Let's just say that it wasn't just a picture ID card; it was the camel's nose under the tent flap for a massively intrusive national database system with huge potential for misuse, abuse, and creeping changes of scope.
Today the UK has a de-facto biometric authentication system in the shape of the Identity and Passport Office database and the DVLA driing license database: between these, there's roughly 90% coverage of the adult population. But because it's opt-in and voluntary, and the police can't at any moment challenge you to produce a card and arrest you instantly if you're not carrying it, it hasn't produced the same push-back.
(As for those CCTV cameras? Most of them are in private premises, subject to GDPR data sharing restrictions. It's actually illegal for a shop CCTV system to cover the pavement outside, for example. The police only have access to them when a crime has been reported and half of them aren't working, as my wife discovered when her bicycle was stolen from right under a cluster of them …)