Vaccine Passports Thin End of the Wedge Leading to ID Cards, Warns Reform UK Leader

Reform UK leader Richard Tice has warned that vaccine passports are the “thin end of a very dangerous wedge”, which will ultimately lead to national identity cards.

The leader of Reform UK, formerly the Brexit Party, also warned that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s demand for proof of double vaccination for entry from September would not stop at nightclubs and other large-capacity venues.

“I think this is the thin end of a very dangerous wedge because he referred then to ‘large gatherings’, inferring they might be sporting events. But where does this stop? Before you know it, it’ll be large parties. It could be weddings. It’ll be the full gamut. I think this is really, really dangerous,” Mr Tice told talkRADIO’s Julia Hartley-Brewer on Wednesday.

Warning that the inevitable next step could be compulsory identity cards, Mr Tice continued: “Essentially, this is coercion to be vaccinated through the backdoor. But it is very dangerous… and if you take it all the way down the road, you end up at ID cards.”

Mr Tice is not the only political figure to make the observation, with the Liberal Democrats — who have been opposed to ID cards since the Tony Blair government proposed them in 2002, for the initially voluntary scheme to eventually be scrapped in 2010 under the Tory-Lib Dem coalition — making the same connection in recent months.

In April, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesman Alistair Carmichael warned that vaccine passports would be “a fundamental redefinition of the relationship between the citizen and the state”, stating when Johnson announced the measures on Monday: “Vaccine passports are Covid ID cards: unworkable, expensive and divisive.”

A firm developing a health pass for the government said already said it could be redeployed as a national identity card.

Asked about the succession of polls showing Britons backing the government’s lockdown strategies, Mr Tice said: “Isn’t it strange, Julia, every time the government has announced a controversial policy, throughout the whole last 18 months, guess what? Within 24 hours, YouGov’s announced a poll that — guess what? — always supports the government. Not once have they come up with a poll that doesn’t support the government.

“So I’m afraid I don’t trust YouGov. I don’t truth the polls that they release because that is more than just a coincidence.”

Speaking to Nigel Farage on GB News on Monday, leader of the Conservative backbench 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady, also expressed doubt over the pro-government polling, much of which comes from YouGov, co-founded in 2000 by the-now Vaccine Minister Nadhim Zahawi.

Sir Graham said: “I also think some of these opinion polls are wide of the mark. One that made me laugh, I think around about the turn of the year had 70 odd per cent support for continuing lockdown but I think about 60 per cent of people said they personally weren’t following the rules.

“An awful lot of people, I think, think that they personally are well able to make rational decisions for themselves and their families they just think all of the others are too stupid to do so.”