If you want to avoid being registered on the National Identity Register during the “voluntary” phase, then you will need to avoid having to renew your passport during this time. It makes sense, therefore, to renew early before the bill becomes law and the machinery of the state is ready to tag you like cattle and make you a prisoner in your own country.
You don’t need an excuse to renew your passport early – you don’t need to “lose” it or accidentally put it in the washing machine, nor, for that matter, do you need to provide an explanation should they telephone you and ask; as they did with me.
Your new passport will have an extra nine months on it. This means that in the case of myself and Mrs Longrider, our passports are now valid until June 2016 well beyond the “voluntary” phase of the scheme.
So, if you want to avoid being tagged, do it now, do it quickly, don’t delay.
And when 2010 comes around? Well, if enough of us have managed to avoid registration that will provide a headache for the government as they are planning on an 80% take-up by that point, making compulsion easier to enforce on the refusniks. The lower that figure is, the harder it will be for them when people start to refuse.
This all presupposes that they will put their scheme into practice competently and on time. Never underestimate the power of government departments’ incompetence. 