Why I am calling out SNP hypocrisy over mandatory digital ID cards

Or, if you are in the SNP, you can simply deny that the U-turn exists.

The screeching hypocrisy from the SNP in recent weeks has been something to behold. They have pirouetted into opposition to the government’s mandatory digital ID card scheme – just three years after imposing their own mandatory scheme in Scotland. It appears that the SNP have no sense of embarrassment or indeed awareness about their hypocrisy over digital ID – so it is for the rest of us to call it out.

You have to admire their brass neck. Pete Wishart made a point of securing a debate on digital ID in the House of Commons this week, so eager were the nationalists to rewrite their recent history. Wishart was typically furious in his condemnation of Keir Starmer’s ID programme, but conveniently ignorant of his own party’s record.

I suggested to him in the debate that perhaps in hindsight the imposition of a Covid passport to control access to events and venues by the Scottish Government was a mistake, both in the way it mandated our behaviour and the risks it posed to people’s private data. After all, the Information Commissioner’s Office at the time raised concerns that the Scottish government and NHS Scotland had not been “upfront with people about how their information was being used”.

Wishart’s response was to glide over the contradictions as if they did not exist. If you have ever tried to follow nationalist arguments for Scotland to separate from the rest of the UK you may be wearily familiar with this approach.

Therein lies the issue with the SNP’s sudden conversion to digital ID opposition – there is no principle at play. Their only interest in supporting or opposing any policy is whether or not it helps the cause of independence – and so their only real opposition to this digital ID plan is that they cannot slap a saltire on it.

I have long opposed mandatory ID card schemes – whoever proposed them. When Tony Blair came knocking in the 2000s, the Liberal Democrats knocked him back. When the Tories imposed repressive ID rules in our elections, we fought them every step of the way. When the SNP imposed vaccine passports in Scotland in 2022, we fought them there as well – and we will keep fighting Keir Starmer’s digital ID today.

If the SNP are U-turning on ID cards and joining the fight against them then their support and their votes are welcome – but we should not kid ourselves about their motivation. The arguments against Keir Starmer’s plans today are the same as with their own ID schemes – all that has changed is political convenience for the nationalists.

That U-turn really ought to be a cause for some reflection from the SNP, and a little more embarrassment at having backed mandatory ID cards for so long. Then again, if the SNP believed in good argument and good government – let alone in public contrition – I am not sure we would recognise them.

Alistair Carmichael is the Scottish Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney and Shetland