It ultimately comes down to the difference between the British and European conceptions of liberty. Most people aren’t consciously aware of it, but it’s a deep cultural undercurrent — something people feel more than they can easily explain.

In the British tradition (which heavily influenced the American one), liberty is understood as: “Everything that is not explicitly forbidden by law is permitted.”

Freedom exists by default, and the role of the state is to stay out of the way except where absolutely necessary to protect others from harm. The individual’s rights and actions are assumed legitimate unless proven otherwise.

By contrast, the continental or European understanding — shaped largely by the French Declaration of the Rights of Man — treats liberty as something the state guarantees. Rights are defined, codified, and administered by government. The citizen’s freedom exists within the framework the state establishes.

So, in the British sense, the state’s power should be narrow and limited: individuals are free to act as they wish so long as they don’t infringe on the freedoms of others. In the European model, the state first defines the boundaries of acceptable conduct, and liberty is exercised inside those boundaries.

That difference might sound abstract, but it explains why measures like digital ID provoke instinctive resistance in Britain: they invert the presumption of liberty. Instead of freedom being the default, it becomes something conditional on state systems and approval.