SERVE NOTICE ON YOUR MP

Yours faithfully,

Marc   Wilkinson

Founder

79 New PEOPLE PARTIES for the Scotland, England, Wales & N.I.

Party Leader EDINBURGH & EAST LOTHIAN PEOPLE

M: +44 7791 843 702 

E: marc@peopleparties.org

Let’s turn the reaction triggered by Keir Starmer into transforming politics. Let’s fix politics.

Almost THREE MILLION have signed the Do not introduce Digital ID cards petition on ‘our’ government’s website. Despite this the response from the government published on the petition page makes it clear that they intend to ignore the petition. Nevertheless, I would urge you to sign it (https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/730194) if you haven’t done so mainly to show the sheer magnitude of support. The record petition with 6.1 million signatures in 2019 was to Revoke Article 50 and remain in the EU. This petition was also ignored; however, it would be great to beat it.

Let’s capitalise on the reaction triggered by Keir Starmer and let’s build something fabulous. The plan is to inspire the creation of 80 new local PEOPLE PARTIES for each region of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Three million people have given their name, email and postcode to the government. Ironically, there is no mechanism to bring these people together locally on an ongoing basis.

I am going to attempt to bring 500 people together per each of our 650 parliamentary constituencies to sign to serve notice on their MP (and MSPs etc for the devolved nations). It will be harder for individual MPs to ignore 500 constituents who are all connected locally. The plan is for 20-50 to come to a meeting with their MP at their office to hand deliver the letter serving notice in person. Hopefully, your MP will agree to a photo outside their office with all the constituents which can be published online and emailed to all the signatories to share on social media.

When you sign a petition, you consent to your subservience which is why it can be easily ignored. One man or woman serving notice as equals on another man or woman is far more powerful. The threat is that signatories will consider voting for a more democratic party and might get involved in creating a new local people party that has Direct Democracy enshrined within its constitution.

The full draft of the letter is below. We will give MPs the option to read the letter out loud or one of us will read the letter out loud. This is important because we know that MPs often do not read or personally reply to emails. Understandably, these are often dealt with by caseworkers.

If we succeed, we will have brought together 325K people who will all be able to come together locally in every region. As almost 3 million have signed the petition our 325K target is achievable. It will be more effective, especially, if it speeds up the creation of 80 new local PEOPLE PARTIES.

Letter to your Westminster MP & in Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland your MSP etc.

Dear MP

Re: Digital ID and our Constitution

We the undersigned are your constituents. We are writing to you as you are duty bound to represent us. We have grave concerns about the government’s proposal for a compulsory Digital ID. We hereby serve notice on you demanding that you oppose the Digital ID in Parliament. If you do not meet our demand, then, for future elections, we will consider voting for one of the parties that opposes the Digital ID or we will vote for our local PEOPLE PARTY whose constitution means that elected representatives are more like elected delegates as they are bound to take instructions on how to vote on behalf of the electorate directly from the members of the party. This will introduce an element of Direct Democracy to our Parliament through the constitution of the party without having to change our system of democracy.

Please read in full our letter which explains in detail the constitutional and legal considerations.

The issue is not merely administrative convenience, nor even immigration control. It is whether the people of this country remain governed by the rule of law, or whether arbitrary power shall become the new norm.

The rule of law requires that liberty is the presumption and restraint the exception. A universal biometric register inverts this principle. It would treat all citizens as suspects, compelling them to prove themselves to the state at each turn. Such compulsion is government by power, not by law.

Parliament has already provided extensive powers:

• Immigration Act 1971 – foundation of entry, stay, and removal powers.
• Illegal Migration Act 2023 – excludes asylum claims via irregular routes.
• Safety of Rwanda Act 2024 – authorises offshore processing.
• Border Security, Asylum & Immigration Bill 2025 – strengthens enforcement and liability.

The defect lies in administration and resourcing, not in legislation. To impose biometric surveillance upon 67 million Britons because government fails to enforce the laws it already holds is wholly disproportionate.

Human Rights and Data Protection

• Article 8 ECHR (HRA 1998): guarantees respect for private life.
• S and Marper v UK (2008): retention of innocent DNA unlawful.
• Bridges v South Wales Police (2020): live facial recognition disproportionate.
• UK GDPR requires:
• Art. 5 – data minimisation.
• Art. 7 – freely given consent.
• Arts. 9–10 – strict limits on biometrics as special category data.

A compulsory ID register cannot meet these tests.

Equality and Children’s Rights

• Equality Act 2010, s.19: a digital-only requirement is indirect discrimination, disproportionately burdening older citizens, disabled people, and minority ethnic groups.
• Children’s rights: protected by Article 16 UNCRC and Article 8 ECHR. The ICO has reprimanded schools for mishandling pupils’ biometrics. Extending compulsory ID to minors would multiply these breaches across the nation.

Our constitutional inheritance rests upon the liberty of the subject:

• Magna Carta (1215): no free man treated as suspect by default.
• Bill of Rights (1689): forbids arbitrary executive power.
• Protection of Freedoms Act (2012): required deletion of innocent DNA.

As Dicey observed, the English constitution rests not on abstract declarations but on entrenched habits of legality. A Digital ID would establish the opposite habit – surveillance by default.

Biometric Property – The Paradox

English law already treats aspects of the body as property:

• Yearworth v North Bristol NHS Trust (2009): sperm samples are recognised as property.
• Trade Marks Act 1994: permits registration of DNA or fingerprint logos.
• Copyright law: protects caricatures of faces as property.

Yet the state denies that a person’s real fingerprint, DNA, or facial template is their property when it wishes to seize and use them. It is incoherent that I may own a cartoon of my face, but not my face itself.

Parliament should legislate for a data trust framework, recognising biometric and genetic data as the property of the individual, with the state acting only as trustee, subject to fiduciary duties and judicial oversight.

Evidence shows that Digital ID, once created, will not remain confined to immigration:

• The Online Safety Act 2023 embeds ID checks into online platforms.
• The NHS App increasingly serves as a health gateway.
• FCA KYC rules point towards mandatory ID in banking.

The spread from border control to health, finance, and political participation is not speculative — it is inevitable. The liberties of the people of this country are not recent inventions but the inheritance of an indigenous population whose traditions of self-government stretch back through Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights to the present day.

The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007), while not binding, is persuasive. It affirms:

• Article 3: the right to self-determination;
• Article 8: protection from forced assimilation;
• Article 31: control of cultural identity and genetic resources.

To compel every Briton to enrol in a Digital ID regime is to assimilate the people of this country into a global identity system, contrary to both our constitutional tradition and persuasive international principle.

The World Economic Forum openly advocates interoperable digital identity systems (Reimagining Digital ID, 2023; Connected Future Initiative, 2025). Once built, a UK Digital ID would not remain sovereign. It would align with such global frameworks, diminishing the independence of Parliament and the liberties of the subject.

Citizens retain:

• Complaint to the ICO (Art. 77 UK GDPR).
• Judicial remedy in the courts (Art. 79).
• Compensation for material and non-material damage (Art. 82).
• Judicial review for disproportionality, failure to meet the Public Sector Equality Duty, or breach of the doctrine of legality.

But remedies after the fact are no substitute for restraint at the outset. The Digital Identity proposal is:

• Unnecessary – immigration law already suffices.
• Unconstitutional – it reverses the presumption of liberty.
• Unlawful – under GDPR, the DPA 2018, and the HRA 1998.
• Discriminatory – contrary to the Equality Act 2010.
• Expropriatory – treating biometric identity as state property.
• Internationally inconsistent – with ICCPR, UN privacy resolutions, and persuasive UNDRIP principles.
• Externally driven – shaped by unelected international bodies.

It represents a constitutional rupture: the substitution of surveillance for liberty, of arbitrary control for the rule of law. I therefore SERVE NOTICE ON YOU to oppose the Digital ID in Parliament and to uphold the principle that in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland liberty remains the rule, restraint the exception, and identity the property of the people — not the state, and not unelected foreign bodies.

Yours faithfully,

Signed by five hundred (we hope) constituents and delivered personally. Names and addresses to be listed below.

Please help by sharing this petition and together Stop the Digital ID!

Yours faithfully,

Marc Wilkinson

Founder of the UK’s Sixty Local Regional People Parties