UK Petition: Do not introduce Digital ID cards

Unlike the ludicrous US system with a "written constitution" that basically means a handful of unelected people get to overide all laws and say they're just "interpreting" as they ignore the plain words, the clear intent or any other obstacle to their Imperial Decree, the Parliament is literally Sovereign.

So, if Parliament passes a Law tomorrow, miraculously by unanimous consent saying "The UK shall never have Digital ID" and insisting it denies itself any ability to make a law introducing such a thing - at any point it can also, despite that, pass law making a Digital ID by the narrowest majority, for example the day after.

In fact not so very long ago this exact farce played out. The Liberal Democrats were in a situation where they could either join a coalition with the larger Conservative party and form a government or they could say "No" and likely the populace has to do another election. Popular understanding was that British people hate elections, and so if you insist on another one they will punish you, the Lib Dems did not want that. But, they were concerned that the Tories would betray them (predictably)

So hence the 2011 "Fixed Term Parliaments Act". But although the Act says you can't just end parliament without a term ending, obviously Parliament can just pass a new law saying nah, changed our mind, which is what the 2019 "Early Parliamentary General Election Act" does and then the 2022 "Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act" undid the whole pointless mess.

Parliamentary sovereignty might be able to take on limits via some sort of tradition over a long period. For example perhaps if Parliament had stuck with that Fixed Term rule for a few hundred years - it'd settle as "Just how it is" and there'd be a serious argument that you can't just pass a law saying just this once as an exception we'll hold elections early. But "It was a few years ago" clearly doesn't cut it and that's what you would need for such a "counter bill".

The best you can hope for is a pledge by politicians, which is worth slightly less than a piece of paper you wrote it on.

It's becoming increasingly confusing to me who any of the parties actually represent.

The more left leaning people I know are foaming at the mouth over how Labour have operated since being elected, all moderates (outside London) I know tend to lean Conservative (though that party seems to be AWOL since the election) and the only party I hear that is gaining any popularity is Reform, and they are doing so at an alarming pace.

4 years is a long time, but it seems inevitable its a two horse race between Reform (given polls I have to presume not everyone who votes for them is a racist twit) and Labour, and Labour seem hell bent on alienating any one who isn't centre-right, and they have to contend with Reform for those votes. Maybe it's politicking to a degree I don't understand, but it seems like a very odd strategy.

For those outside the UK look at this chart to see how fast Reform are rising:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_U...

We need to clearly define some stuff around Digital ID, since people seem to be using the term for distinctly different things.

There's (1) eGovernment platforms, where you can handle government-related business online using a login. There's (2) Digital ID cards, where you can use your phone in place of a physical ID or drivers license in real life. And then there's (3) full EU-proposed-style Digital ID, where government wants to act as a SSO provider for private online services, like social media.

Yet someone can be rightfully criticizing (3), as it would pose a major risk to online privacy, and someone else barges in with "here in [place] we have a great eGovernment platform which is very useful for filing your taxes online, I don't see why you'd oppose that". Not specifically in this thread, it's been noticeable over almost all Digital ID-related discussions in the past. Please be considerate of that.

This appears to be about (2), with the catch of it being made mandatory for anyone who wants to be employed in the UK.

Ask your bank for a pin machine, you can get a chip and pin machine to solve BankID challenges.

The machine itself is likely manufactured in China, but it’s of no consequence. You wouldn’t be able to communicate with me if you didn’t use chinese products at all.