World | UK
ID card for foreigners will hit nation's cultural life
From Tuesday, anyone from outside the European Union who wants to live and work in the UK for more than six months will have to apply for a compulsory British ID card.
- By Christopher Hope, The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2008
- Published: 23:15 November 25, 2008
London: From Tuesday, anyone from outside the European Union who wants to live and work in the UK for more than six months will have to apply for a compulsory British ID card.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith wants 90 per cent of foreign residents in Britain to have identity cards by 2014.
To get an ID card, people will have their faces scanned and will have to give 10 fingerprints.
Campaigners fear that this will put off celebrities like American singer Madonna from setting up home here and so damage the cultural life of the nation.
In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group including author Philip Pullman, musicians Neil Tennant and Brian Eno, campaigning QC Baroness Kennedy and comedians Mark Thomas and Lucy Porter, warn of the damage to Britain's image abroad.
New homes
Footballers, such as Manchester City's £32.5 million (Dh181.3 million) Brazilian striker Robinho, would also have to carry ID cards if they came to the UK after yesterday.
The letter says: "If this scheme is continued ... fewer of the world's leading performers in every field will choose to make their homes here than do now."
"Successful foreigners such as Robinho or Kevin Spacey, and the overseas students who subsidise our universities, have a lot of choice where they study or exercise their talents. Some will decide Britain has become too unfriendly."
The group also warns of a steep drop in fee income as foreigners decide that the UK is not a "friendly" country to come to study.
It warns: "If this scheme is continued it will lead to less fee-income and lower international status for our educational institutions."
"British students will have to pay higher tuition to make up, and will have less money to spend with local businesses. 'ID cards for foreigners' is not just a small-minded slogan -Britain will suffer culturally and economically."
On Monday night, Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat shadow home secretary, supported the concerns that British cultural life will lose out from the introduction of ID cards.
He said: "Foreign nationals continue to make an enormous contribution to British culture, from the Premier League to the performing arts."
"If these people choose to go elsewhere to places that won't treat them like criminals, this country will be all the poorer for it."
Speaking on Tuesday ahead of the first ID cards being issued, Smith said: "In time identity cards for foreign nationals will replace paper documents and give employers a safe and secure way of checking a migrant's right to work and study in the UK."
"The Australian-style points system will ensure only those we need - and no more - can come here. It is also flexible, allowing us to raise or lower the bar according to the needs of business and taking population trends into account," Smith said.
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