Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is urging the British government to accelerate the rollout of Bill Gates’ digital ID system, claiming it will remove anti-establishment populists and dissidents who go against the official narrative.
According to Blair, populists “exploit” public grievances without offering real solutions.
“The grievance would be on immigration—that the thing is out of control. The grievance would be on crime—that we’re not doing enough on it,” he said in an interview with The Times.
“So you say, ‘OK, here’s what you do.’ And then you have a big political fight. The populist is forced to choose.”
Blair insists that digital IDs could be the solution.
“We are putting in place the building blocks for it, so that’s good. But we should embrace it fully and roll it out as soon as we can because it will have an immediate set of benefits,” he told the newspaper.
He acknowledged privacy concerns but argued that the public is willing to trade privacy for efficiency.
“There will be a big debate… how much privacy are you prepared to trade for efficiency? My view is that people are actually prepared to trade quite a lot,” he said, adding that implementing digital IDs will expose those who “talk about issues like immigration or benefit fraud but don’t actually have the will to implement solutions.”
Blair, who served as Prime Minister from 1997 to 2007, previously attempted to introduce physical ID cards but faced strong public resistance.
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Now, under the leadership of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, he believes the government has an opportunity to push forward with digital IDs and other surveillance measures, including live facial recognition cameras.
While Starmer’s administration is already considering digital driving licenses and passports, Blair insists the government must go even further in implementing a centralized digital identity system.
“Young people will be able to use government-backed digital ID cards to prove they are old enough to drink alcohol under legal changes set to take effect next year,” The Telegraph reported.
“They will be able to sign up to digital ID companies that are certified against government-set standards for security and reliability and then use the app on their smartphone to prove they are over 18 when visiting pubs, restaurants, and shops.
It is part of a wider effort to move more state functions online so that people can prove their identity for everything from paying taxes to opening a bank account using the government-backed app.”
There is a striking irony in the UK’s sudden push to determine “precisely who has a right” to be in the country after years of unrestricted mass migration.
While the government insists that the new digital ID system will remain voluntary, critics argue that many so-called optional programs eventually become mandatory. UK Heritage Party Leader David Kurten has also pointed out that the push for digital IDs initially emerged during the rollout of Covid vaccine passports, raising concerns about the gradual expansion of state control over personal freedoms.
“The dangerous thing here is that it’s not just going to be limited to pubs and clubs,” Kurten said, referencing The Telegraph article.
“They’re even talking about entry to shops. Why you would need a digital ID in order to go into a shop and do some shopping, I don’t know—that sounds very nefarious.”
Critics argue that such measures resemble authoritarian surveillance tactics and would erode civil liberties under the guise of national security and efficiency.
