The government has failed, so the citizenry must pay. The British government has so completely lost control of the national frontiers—an amazing achievement given that they consist of many miles of deep salt water—that it plans to issue breathing licences to everyone living here, as a substitute for secure borders. The unstated argument is that, as we can no longer decide who is allowed to live here, we can at least find out who our inhabitants are and monitor what they do.
This is the pretext for His Majesty’s Government’s latest plunge into Chinese-style statecraft. Fail to register with the new digital identity system, and you will be cut off from the means of existence, above all the freedom to work and be paid. Even if this plan worked (and it obviously won’t), this would surely be a bit much. Why must harmless suburb-dwellers be regimented like convicts on parole because their rulers cannot keep control of the nation’s doors and windows?
It is not the fault of the British people that our government keeps signing idealist treaties and conventions which mean that we have to welcome, feed, and house anyone who can manage to get across the English Channel in a rubber boat on a calm day—and that we must not use force to prevent them from crossing or landing. To help make the whole world more free, as an idealist might put it, we in our island must be less free—even though most of us would be much happier if it were the other way round.