Digital ID: Unionist politicians warn against 'carve out' for NI - as Hilary Benn told such a move would be 'unacceptable'

​The TUV has also slammed NI Secretary Hilary Benn over his “refusal to give a straight answer” on whether Northern Ireland will face a different regime than the rest of the country – saying such a move would be “unacceptable”.

In a BBC interview on Tuesday, Mr Benn did not rule out introducing a different Digital ID card in Northern Ireland – and revealed that the Irish government has been consulted on the plans.

The scheme has been opposed across the political spectrum at Stormont – with unionists opposing it on civil liberties grounds and nationalists objecting to being part of a UK scheme dubbed ‘Brit Card’.

DUP MP Sammy Wilson told the News Letter that his party’s stance is that it is not good for the United Kingdom as a whole.

“It will not achieve the objective that the government is claiming it's designed to achieve – and it will be the foot in the door to an overbearing state which will be able to have knowledge of all kinds of aspects of your life.

“So we'll be opposing it along with others, including a large number of Labour Party MPs, if the legislation comes to the floor of the House”, the East Antrim MP said.

“As far as Northern Ireland is concerned, the one thing that we don't want is to see yet another carve out for Northern Ireland. We now have EU laws, we now have a lot of UK legislation which can't apply to Northern Ireland.

“If this became yet another means of making NI different from the rest UK, we'd be opposed to it.

“And given the number of people from NI who go and work in the UK at some stage of their lives, if they apply across in GB, then you would find a lot of people here would have to, just for their livelihoods, take the ID card anyway”.

He said that would cause “confusion” in Northern Ireland – and there would be no point in having a scheme in the UK if the Republic of Ireland didn’t have a parallel arrangement.

“With the Common Travel Area – and the number of people in the Irish Republic who work sometimes on GB, sometimes in Ireland, etc, you're going to find that the exact same situation would pertain there as would pertain in Northern Ireland.

“It is again, another example of where I think the Prime Minister needed a headline grabbing anti-immigration policy for the conference. It’s ill-thought-through and will probably go the way of a lot of other schemes and get mired in the mud of detail”, Mr Wilson said.

TUV immigration spokesperson Councillor Ron McDowell said it is “deeply concerning” that Northern Ireland is once again “being treated as a place apart”.

“The Secretary of State’s refusal to give a straight answer on whether we are to face a different digital ID regime than the rest of the UK is unacceptable.

“Hilary Benn has let the mask slip by openly admitting that the Irish Government is being consulted on what is supposed to be a UK-wide internal policy. That speaks volumes about how little regard this Government has for the integrity of the Union.

“The Belfast Agreement does not require London to seek Dublin’s permission before making decisions about employment law or immigration policy in NI. To pretend otherwise is a distortion.

“Let me be clear: the TUV opposes the introduction of digital ID cards. They have the potential to be intrusive and have ramifications for civil liberties. However, if the Government insists on pressing ahead, then they must apply on exactly the same basis in every part of the UK.

“We cannot not accept a situation where NI is subjected to a different scheme, designed in consultation with a foreign government, that sets us further apart from the rest of our nation. That is the very definition of constitutional drift”, Mr McDowell said.