BY PAUL NEWALL

Some years ago, when the Blair government was trying to create an ID card system, I had a role that touched on alcohol sales. An ID system could – on the face of it – be used to remove most doubts about the legality of alcohol sales (only the buyer’s sobriety was left to be judged by the vendor) so it could be a godsend to off-sales licence holders.

In a brainstorming session on the subject, one of the participants brought up the social benefit – in that serial power drinkers who caused trouble when drunk could be barred from buying alcohol as part of the judicial process when they inevitably ended up before a court for their behaviour.

This gave me the shivers, not because aggressive drunks are a good thing but because of the potential for the state to control other issues in the same way, like deciding you drink too much or eat unhealthily – barring sales based on an individual’s buying habits. I had little doubt of the authoritarian bent of the then administration and I breathed a sigh of relief when the scheme was scrapped.

Fast forward to 2021 and Phoenix like, the idea has gained momentum again under the guise of vaccination passports. In the space of a year internal passports have moved from being dismissed as tinfoil hatted conspiracy to “being considered” by government. I do not need to tell you that this is a wolf in sheep’s clothing as a concept, made worse by advances in technology which could use all manner of algorithms and complex, ‘progressive’ legislation to fundamentally change society well into the future.

Anyone who has bothered to read the web sites of the UN, WHO or WEF will know that there is an international effort to create a new and more perfect world post Covid. Now change the name of the vaccine passport to ‘digital identification card’ and the dangers start to emerge with only a small amount of consideration. Under the guise of public health, scanning a card or phone app everywhere you go could just be an upgrade of ‘track and trace’ and have a valid future use for any further epidemics, however the options for misuse and future repression of the masses by the ever-growing state are manifest.

One of the ideas currently being bounced about by our wise and bounteous leaders is that of biodiversity – reintroduction of previously extinct species. According to some crazies, biodiversity requires the removal of rural dwellers and access control via an internal passport system into these renatured areas of scientific interest. Does anyone fancy being rehomed into urban conurbations for the good of the planet? Of course country hikes into the new biodiversity areas would be limited to only those with the right credentials be they scientific or privilege. Statuary limits on how much meat the individual can consume could happen on ecological and health grounds in a new war on climate change and disguised as a public health drive. This would free up land for nature reserves … “Sorry sir you’ve had red meat twice this week”.

The Covid crisis has cut down cash transactions by an order of magnitude. We hear that the perfect world will be cashless and the WEF have expressed the idea of time-limited pay where you have 30 days from payday to empty your account before it’s gone, vouchers could be purchased for those allowed to travel or buy large items but actual saving would become a thing of the past. Certain undesirable individuals and businesses have been shut down by cartelised action by electronic financial companies in the present time – good riddance to the likes of Tommy Robinson, Gab.com and Parler. Imagine the Chinese social credit system on steroids and you can envisage the “New Normal” that is desired by some of the elites. If an individual is found to have “problematic” attitudes or views then their access to the new financial system could be curtailed until those views are ‘upgraded’. Let’s not forget the damage already done to small businesses during the lockdown, a transfer of wealth climbing into the trillions has already taken place from the middle class to multinational corporations worldwide.

This isn’t a criticism of Boris or the Conservatives. In my view this change would be attempted regardless of who’s captaining the ship. This is the state out of control and full of hubris gently shepherding the masses into a dystopian nightmare while misinforming and misleading their political paymasters.

I remember watching documentaries about the Soviet Union where dissidents repeated themes over and over – forced to repeat the party line – despite them knowing that it was a lie. Adam Curtis used the term hypernormalisation in his BBC documentary of the same name to describe this phenomenon (he manages to ask all the right questions but spectacularly fails to draw a single sound conclusion).

The start of this Orwellian nightmare is Covid passports. Cooperate with this scheme in the belief that you will regain your freedoms to travel or go to the pub if you like, but your children and grandchildren will pay the price for your myopia.

Paul Newall is a child of the 1960’s from a traditional Labour-supporting household. Paul dabbled with Trotskyism in the 1980’s but then “grew up and thanks to having responsibilities I slowly migrated across the political spectrum until instead of hating Maggie Thatcher I admired her for beating my side in the miners’ strike”.