I spent Tuesday night at a London mayoral hustings. The event was organised by NO 2 ID and featured the candidates for the Green Party, The Left List, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and UKIP. Ken, the current Mayor, was unable to attend, however, a cardboard cut out allowed him to be there ‘in spirit’.

ID cards are an important subject to me – not just because I am mandated to oppose them (it was voted on at Annual Conference a couple of years back) – but because of my personal views on the subject.

This isn’t a thoughtless, knee-jerk, reactionary, automatic anti-stance to ID cards. It’s just that introducing them doesn’t make any sense at all.

What makes me laugh in all this is the pledge from the government that these cards will not be infallible! What a load of old * * * *. In order for us to get an ID card, you will have to submit your passport/driving licence/birth certificate or any form of ID which at the moment is easy to forge. So, what they are saying is that I can get an infallible form of ID which proves who I am by making an identity up in the first place!

We live in, what I would call, a free society (or at least more free than others). We have created this freedom over centuries and this has resulted in us feeling like a free people. While there are legitimate times to tinker around the edges of our society’s freedoms, and there are cosmetic changes that have been, they never really touch upon the overall feeling of freedom.

One thing that gets my goat is people saying that 11 September 2001 ‘changed everything’, and that’s why we need ID cards. It didn’t. The arguments for these cards have changed on an almost weekly basis. I’ve lost track of what the current logic is. Who knows, it might even be the best way to get more supermarket club card points! Despite the Spanish carrying them, ID cards did not stop the Madrid train bombing in 2004 and the Met has admitted that they would never have stopped the 7/7 bus bombings here either.

There are certain things, which define the look and feel of a free people, and these are the areas that I think that we have no business playing with. I think I will stand firm in my principles and always say that we don’t need them and I have no intension in giving the police more power to stop and search more people - increasing the one-third of young black men under the age of 34 who are on the DNA register. No intension in having to tell people who I am and having to give a real name if it is not necessary.

What I also find disturbing about all this is that for some reason, we are no longer allowed the right to anonymity, that we don’t have the right to walk down the street with a bag over our heads (Not recommended by the way, it may cause suffocation!) and this is quite a primary part of why I oppose it.

Below are some pictures from Tuesday’s event. For more information on No 2 ID, visit their website.

Ama x

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