Another week, and another fresh round of local authorities wake up to the reality of what ID cards would mean to them and their electors, and vote to reject them.
Lancaster City Council passed motion against ID cards proposed by Liberal Democrat councillor Stuart Langhorn, which stated that ID cards and the register would be "an affront to civil liberties", were "likely to have a harmful effect on police and community relations" and that "there is little evidence to show that they will reduce benefit fraud, illegal immigration or crime."
A wrecking amendment suggested by Labour councillors that repeated the government's line on ID cards was voted down, and the motion was passed with support from Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and Green party members.
Last week, Brighton and Hove City Council failed by a few votes to secure a similar motion against the ID scheme, and on Tuesday next week Watford Council will also vote on a measure condemning the controversial ID project. Lancaster City Council brings the number of local authorities publicly coming out on the side of civil liberties, privacy and sanity to seven, joining Norwich, Oxford, York, Cambridge, Liverpool and Sefton, Merseyside.
Phil Booth, national coordinator for NO2ID, said:
"I hope councils continue to realise the immense impracticalities of the proposed ID card scheme, the rapidly rising costs for implementation that they will undoubtedly have to share, and the potential that a compulsory ID register and checking system has for causing deep divisions between their local authority and the community."
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