by Kate Keefe Originally published 19 May 2023, The Tablet
What the Coronation meant for and about British identity has been discussed at great length, but there has been another significant event in this sphere. Because for the first time in a British election, voters in England were asked to produce proof of identity (there were no elections in Wales or Scotland, and I believe the rules were different anyway in Northern Ireland). There’s an approved list of documents that counted in this context. It has to have a photograph of you, but the document itself can be out of date, so long as the photograph still looks like you. Oh, and married women had to take their marriage certificate if their identity document was in a different name from the one they have used on the electoral roll, which could easily happen if you travel for work and your passport is in your maiden name, but at home your post comes to Mr and Mrs X.
In many ways, it’s surprising that it has taken so long for this to be required. In every other country where I have observed and witnessed elections, voters expect to have to produce some kind of identifying document. Sometimes you have to show it to enter the polling station; sometimes your hand is indelibly stamped as you are given your ballot paper to indicate that you have already voted so that you can’t do it twice. So much for, “Vote early, vote often.” In British elections, until now, they used to ask you who you were, check your name against the electoral register, and simply hand you a ballot paper. The basic assumption was one of trust. You could take your polling card – the one that comes in the post with your name on before the election – to the voting station if you wanted, but it was not expected nor required. A tiny number of people were prosecuted for voter fraud, except in a couple of places, but mostly people were trusted, and rightly. It was the corresponding other half of Peter Hennessy’s “good chaps” theory of government, and it has served us well. I am sad to see it go, because what it means is that we no longer have the same confidence in everyone’s good faith.
What is acceptable as an identity document has turned out to be another can of worms, because it’s harder for the young, first to have an acceptable photographic document (possibly while they are still changing so much in appearance) and second, to afford the approved versions, like passports and driving licences, especially when they don’t need to learn to drive. It may have been accidental that old people’s travel cards are accepted and young people’s aren’t, but even as an unintended consequence, it simply does not look fair.
There is no British identity card, and this fact itself is very important for many people, who take pride in not having to carry any sort of papers with them when they go out. Lots of people do not have passports; they are expensive and time-consuming to get hold of. They also go out of date, but as I said, you don’t need to worry about this if the photograph still looks like you. Young people used not to need one until they were old enough to travel alone, because you could be listed on a parent’s passport. One of my father’s proudest moments occurred on the (one) family trip to France, when Daddy handed over his passport to the French border official. There were seven of us children (all stuffed into a Ford Zodiac in those days before seatbelts) and we took up two pages. The official counted the list, counted heads, winked in a very Gallic way at my father, said “Formidable!” and waved us through. (My mother’s reaction I don’t recall; one of us had wandered off in Ramsgate, and once she had been found, Mummy was battling a migraine.)
When our children were little, you were still allowed to add them to a parent’s passport (oh! my husband’s glee at hitting the second page!), but that changed halfway through our own family and now you have to have a separate passport for each child for various good reasons. But getting the photograph of the baby was always difficult especially when they were too small to sit up. I remember sitting under a blue sheet and holding whichever baby it was on my lap so that a photograph could be taken, trying hard not to think about how ridiculous it was for fear of starting to laugh and making the baby wobble. Also (and I speak as a doting parent here), I’m not sure how useful a photograph of a very small child would ever be for identification purposes. I can tell who is who out of my own babies (it’s all in the eyes), but I wouldn’t even attempt anyone else’s. Maybe there’s some very clever way of measuring baby features to differentiate them.
The problem with having to prove your identity is that it can so easily be weaponised (and in the past, so often has been: yellow stars). If the state insists on identity cards to prove entitlement to medical treatment, a job or accommodation, it makes it easier to check whether someone is entitled to these things, but does nothing to help anyone deal with someone in acute need of hospital treatment; the point of the NHS was always to treat first and ask any questions later. Of course this system can be abused; but equally of course, is that not better than seeing people die in front of you?
Proof of identity can be inclusive or exclusive. Where lots of evidence is required to qualify, the thrust is clearly exclusive, but many valuable proofs of identity, like birth certificates, only require a signature. It’s easy if it all happens according to plan in a safe and legal way, in a country not at war; but there’s a charity (toybox.org.uk) which concentrates on providing birth certificates for people without them, because their lives are so difficult if this basic document is missing.
Our children were born while we were living in various places, but in every case, I made sure that we were in England for the birth (and luckily I didn’t have any premature babies), because it isn’t just having the precious piece of paper that matters, it’s what it says. I did not want there to be any possibility of the children being some sort of second-class citizens because they had been born outside the United Kingdom, and for years I thought I was just being paranoid, but now I am glad we never took any chance of their being subject to different interpretations. With a father in crown service as the reason for living away from home, it shouldn’t make any difference, but the Home Office is not infallible.
Membership of the Church can also be proved by the possession of a piece of paper, your baptismal certificate, but you will not be challenged or asked to show it except for checking whether you can access another sacrament (First Communion, Confirmation, marriage). What’s much more important to both you and your parish or congregation is what you do: how much you get involved, which Mass you go to, and so on. I’ve always been very grateful for being a cradle Catholic, because it means nobody else (except the Pope, I suppose) can tell me that I’m not Catholic, even if I don’t subscribe to some of the Church’s wackier ideas. They can tell me that I’m not a good Catholic, but here again I look to the Pope: not only who am I to judge, but who are they to do so? There are always other members of my own Church who are quick to condemn anyone with different ideas from their own, quick to label others “cafeteria Catholics”, but being a cradle Catholic as well as a member of an oppressed majority means that I don’t need to accept their version of my religion.
What is your most precious identity document? It’s possible to have so many nowadays, from store loyalty cards to a full passport. Some are useful, some are really just so much clutter, useful to the shop or venue rather than to me personally. Only some have photographs, but I still have a sheaf of the children’s bus passes from our posting in the Czech Republic – there was a photocard each year for each one, and you bought monthly stamps which attached to it.
On some of our postings, it was very important always to have a diplomatic identity document with you as you were in what might be described as a hostile environment, and I certainly would never have left the house without it; but I’m glad to live in a country where that’s not necessary. I was all set to use an out-of-date diplomatic passport as my identity document, when I realised that our ward wasn’t actually having an election this time round. I felt a bit disappointed, and who knows if the rules will be the same by the next general election?
The most precious cards are the ones which allow you access to somewhere that you want to be. I think my favourite is my British Library card, even though I need to renew it (it expired during Covid and I haven’t been able yet to get to London to renew it). They have a very civilised attitude and an inclusive approach: you just have to explain why you need to access their books and can’t read them anywhere else, and then they let you in. Last time I renewed it, they even asked me whether I wanted to update the photograph or not, because they already had it on file. Even though that identity document is out of date, it’s still so precious that it lives in my wallet, and I’d grab it if I had to flee the house in a hurry. It’s only a little document, but it’s vitally important to my sense of my identity. A bit like my attitude to my religion, I suppose.
© Kate Keefe 2023
