A Question of Identity

The ‘new’ Conservative government have let it be known they intend to introduce voter ID. Predictably the left – every last man-jack of them – is in uproar. This disenfranchises the poor, the minorities, the (altogether now) most vulnerable in society, they scream in unison, before going on to list the ways that this is (literally) Nazism in action. Jew haff ze papers, jah? Why, we may as well sew yellow stars on their sackcloth garments, brand them unclean, or make them ring a leper’s bell. (Although Labour may do well to avoid the yellow star association, what with them facing bankruptcy over their unfortunate antisemitism habit.)

All political parties tend to have an appeal for a particular sector of society. Tories for the actual workers, Greens for the old-fart hippies and callow youth, SNP for the rabid nationalistic English-haters, LibDems for the don’t-knows, etc. But the Labour Party has a manufactured client voter base in a way that no other party does and the thing that unites them all is victimhood. The party relies heavily on the under-educated, the outsiders, the ‘other’; in fact anybody whose sense of grievance can be stoked and whose support can be mobilised in the name of ‘social justice.

For most normal people, people who fend for themselves and their family, social justice means an overall fairness. It means we toil away and make our living however we can and we all contribute to the common good. It means that we expect a fair go and that those who deviate from acceptable behaviour will be corrected and if necessary punished. True social justice means that everybody knows the rules and trusts that they will be applied proportionately and evenly. It also means that those who, through no fault of their own, are disadvantaged in anyway can expect some accommodation for their plight.

What it doesn’t mean is equality of outcome. It doesn’t mean that some groups should be granted, by diktat, advantages above others. It doesn’t mean the creation of victim groups and the pursuit of a narrative of misery. One of the biggest adversaries of the Labour dream is success. Under Tony Blair’s time at the top, Peter Mandelson actually encouraged the pursuit of wealth. The phrase ‘filthy rich’ was used and not in a pejorative sense. And people understood, for a time, that wealth was nothing to be ashamed of. Corbyn has turned that around and resurrected failure as a life choice.

People achieve wealth by relative few routes: for most it comes through work, luck or charity. But if you are wedded to a version of the world in which the state provides everything, then a fourth popular avenue is corruption. Riven through every socialist administration is the heavy taint of hypocritical exploitation of resources nobly intended to ease the suffering of the poor. To grab a handful for yourself, all you have to do is show you are suffering, ideally by identifying with one or more of the left’s favoured causes. And all it costs you is your vote.

Vote Labour and you vote for the perpetuation of mediocrity. Vote Labour and you get to plead poverty and prejudice and forever identify as an underdog. But an underdog who doesn’t have to prove eligibility to vote. Underdogs who can operate vote farms in certain communities to unfairly return ‘representatives’ who will work hard to maintain your status as apparent Untermenschen.

The government propose, as part of their move to properly legitimise voting, the introduction of free photo ID for those who don’t already have it, but that isn’t good enough for Labour. They are now concocting a victim narrative that suggests their client base is so disadvantaged that they may not even realise they need to be registered in order to vote; how could you expect such people to also take steps to prove they are who they say they are? The fact is, Labour just don’t want people to be politically engaged unless they are already signed up to the red card mob.

You can be whoever you want to be...

So, the downtrodden masses who, despite needing ID to collect a parcel from the Post Office, to drive, to travel or to claim benefits from the state are somehow incapable of proving who they are? Pull the other one. And the ridiculous notion that those who have made the effort to register to vote are insufficiently motivated to pop down to the council offices to pick up a free voter ID card? If they can't be bothered to vote, if they don't know they might need ID, if they are so politically disengaged that the need for a card will put them off altogether, if the only reason they will vote is to get free stuff, is their vote worth defending at all?