The case against vaccine passports
Edward Howard
In the easing of the lockdown, we can be thankful of many things. The main one being that our freedoms are going to be restored as best as possible, and that our lives can start to get back to normal as well.
Which makes it all the more infuriating that some of these restrictions will remain for no practical reason, beyond the government having more power than it reasonably should, and are refusing to get rid of all of it just yet.
The most blatant of these are the new coronavirus vaccine passports, that are now being used as a way to transition from lockdown to normality, which would be a necessary evil if that was as far as it will go.
Of course though, there is reason to doubt this. Given the fact that in post 9/11 and 7/7 political history, most of the draconian laws passed to allegedly curb such attacks have never been repealed and this government’s fondness of pushing the authoritarian button to such issues should make us more sceptical of such a thing.
And while thankfully, much of the worst aspects of such a plan has been toned down, due to pressure from the hospitality industry, there are still many reasons to be against such a plan to go ahead at all. Here’s the case against vaccine passports.
The most obvious is the civil liberties argument; it would turn the current structure of the British constitution upside down, mainly that of changing it from a situation whereby natural or God-given rights dominate to that of the state, with the vaccine passports making us subjects as opposed to free citizens. In short, it would make us far more akin to most of our continental cousins, whereby the state dominates civil society in how we are governed: in that everything is illegal until the state allows it, as opposed to Britain, where everything is allowed until it is officially banned.
The philosophical case is one thing, but its application is entirely another. Britain has definitely had items akin to vaccine passports in the past: those of identity cards. What is very telling is that the contexts were completely different, given that both times Britain adopted ID cards, it was during wartime and were abolished soon after the conflicts in question were over, due to how unpopular they became.
Their unpopularity wasn’t surprising, given that this new found power was often abused to push around ordinary folk. Back in World War One, such a scheme led to indignity among the British people, while the implementation of them in the Second World War also led to similar abuses once the scheme was extended beyond the conflict to supposedly combat the communist threat, leading most infamously to the Willcock v. Muckle case whereby the Liberal MP Harry Willcock refused to show his to a police officer, as he felt that they had no place in peacetime. From that, both schemes were abolished, in 1919 and 1952 respectively.
How would now be different? In some ways, it could be arguably worse; much of the British public is less concerned about its civil liberties being undermined than it once was in previous generations, and the fact that the state is increasingly more authoritarian than it was back then. We’ve had no end of proof showing that in recent years, between several police forces throwing their weight around against anti lockdown protests and candlelit vigils, on top of them taking a similarly abusive and authoritarian line against anti-CCP campaigners and journalists as well. That’s not even getting in to how PR and political bias has often clouded their judgement these days, both in the recent Carl Beech witch hunt and politically motivated cases against wrongthinkers, but that’s something for another time.
In short, it was a scheme that was already abused during its heyday in the early 20th century, and there is far more ground for it to be worse in this day in age.
Beyond that, the practicality of such measures is also in doubt. Back when such a scheme was implemented during the Second World War, there was no evidence of the cards being used to catch spies or saboteurs, as noted by Peter Hitchens in his book on the subject matter. It did however, lead to much in the way of identity fraud, due to many of the cards in question going missing. Such a problem also has potential implications for this new scheme of vaccine passports, due to the increasing problems with hacking and fraud online.
So if they led to abuses in power during their previous implementations and there was little proof of them working any way, why would this modern equivalent be any different?
The final argument against them though is that they inevitably create and lead to a more authoritarian state than what we’ve been accustomed to. As mentioned previously, the post 9/11 and 7/7 legislation that the Blair government implemented to supposedly stop terrorist threats – while rarely, if ever, bothering to fight the actual causes of the terror itself in those cases as well – has yet to be repealed, and unsurprisingly, much of the worst legislation from that period is still on the books.
The rights to habeas corpus, not being locked up without a trial, to protest, the presumption of innocence and to privacy were all undermined by various laws Blair’s government implemented, of which are still in effect to this day. And again, none of this legislation has proven to be effective in its supposed means, and during Blair’s time, crime exploded in terms of the raw figures. His motto was presumably never let a good crisis go to waste, and that shouldn’t be Boris Johnson’s here.
Unsurprisingly as well was Blair’s plans to push forward with ID cards as well, something they so much believed in, that their former Home Secretary Alan Johnson felt he could have convinced George Orwell to side with him on the subject matter. Thankfully, such a proposal met fierce opposition, and was eventually abolished in 2011 by the Tory-Lib Dem coalition government. Hopefully this meets a similar fate, either being defeated in the Commons now by an increasingly large and vocal cross-party group of MPs when it is put before them, or in the future by a different administration.
The fact that the plan has already had to be walked back due to heavy backlash shows how unpopular much of it already is, and how great pressure can work against it, as is the promise that it will expire in a year, in order to quell Parliamentary opposition.
However, if it isn’t opposed more, it could be streamrolled in, and there’s no telling how long it will last. While a year has been set, it seems that it could join the likes of three weeks to suppress the spread, how illegal immigration will be curbed and that such a passport scheme won’t come to fruition in the first place as another broken promise by this administration who are already testing the patience of both the public and many in their own party with such U-turns.
Finally, there’s this. Many have compared Boris Johnson to Winston Churchill, a comparison which is certainly apt. Both were former well connected aristocratic journalists, and later politicians who in their day had equal amounts of respect and criticism thrown their way, and both had to deal with major crises that defined their premierships for better or worse.
But if Johnson wants to truly ape Churchill, he should do what Churchill did in 1952: abolish such ID cards to, as a later government minister said, ‘set the people free’. For that, he will be truly honouring his word in ending lockdown restrictions once and for all.
That or the Boris Johnson from 2007 would do. Whatever works then.