It is somewhat ironic that the advent of a Conservative Liberal coalition in the United Kingdom should ensure the ultimate success of a campaign the Celtic League has carried on for almost two decades.
It was in the mid 1990s that the Celtic League first opposed plans by the UK Labour government to introduce identity cards. At the time we submitted a critique of the plan as part of the consultation process being undertaken by
Home Secretary, Jack Straw, into the proposals.
The `Straw’ proposals faltered but were ultimately revived by David Blunkett in the form of a much more comprehensive plan to store individual data on an ID `smart card’, proposals which we once again (along with other libertarian bodies and Celtic political parties, such as the SNP) opposed.
One of the first announcements of the new Con-Lib Home Secretary has been to cancel the Labour government’s plans for the ID card which are now destined for the political scrapheap – a move welcomed by the Celtic League.
See related articles on Celtic News at:
https://groups.yahoo.com/group/celtic_league/message/2513
https://groups.yahoo.com/group/celtic_league/message/1439
https://groups.yahoo.com/group/celtic_league/message/1444
Please note the related article from the older Celtic News archive which outlines our opposition to the Straw plan in 1997 is not currently on-line. With the establishment of the new web-site not all the older archive material is presently available. We hope to rectify this in due course.
J B Moffatt (Mr)
Director of Information
Celtic League
12/05/10