Statewatch has a good exposition of the issues surrounding ID cards in the UK historically. At least in those days MPs put up some fight for “our freedom from being challenged on every occasion to produce something to prove that we are certain persons”
Aneurin Bevan MP, 1947, from the government benches in the House of Commons:
I believe that the requirement of an internal passport is more objectionable than an external passport, and that citizens ought to be allowed to move about freely without running the risk of being accosted by a policeman or anyone else, and asked to produce proof of identity.
