I think that part of the resistance we are seeing now may be a backlash against lockdown: petition against is well over 1.5 million, and counting. While lots of people have tried to forget the horror of lockdown, the anger is probably still stirring in many people's minds. If the idea of ID cards had been proposed in 2019, I might even have welcomed it, sceptical as I am about many things.
In 2020, the thing that frightened me the most was not the virus, or even lockdown itself: it was the complete lack of public resistance, and the very vague communication from the government, which I'm sure was deliberately ambiguous, and also because they had no clue themselves. At first, nobody dared to question lockdown at all, and the tiny handful of those who did simply could not be heard above the banging of pots and pans, and the screams of "you granny murderer!". Not only did the public (and our so-called opposition) completely fail to resist, but they begged for more. So now, I'm reassured that there is a very clear backlash against the idea of digital ID. Even if it does get through, it will at least have been tried by the court of public opinion, which did not happen with lockdown.
With lockdown, there was no exit plan, no parliamentary scrutiny, no debate, no discussion of the blatant harms. People were frightened into accepting their children's education being destroyed, their loved ones dying confused and alone, their businesses being snatched away overnight, self-employed people who started at the wrong time losing their income overnight, it becoming a "new normal" to be micromanaged by the government, down to what you could and could not buy in shops, etc, and it became a "new normal" to "check in" everywhere you went. The list is endless. People accepted all this, without question, believing it was in a good cause.
Then we found out that Saint Boris and his merry men were partying throughout, while we made these massive sacrifices, so they knew all along that things weren't as bad as they were telling us. We found out that the government defrauded the country to the tune of billions, making their rich mates even richer. (And the Post Office scandal is still very fresh in our memories, as an extremely clear example of government IT going very, very wrong.)
Because of all this, people feel conned, and some people feel stupid for believing everything the government said. Indeed, Mr Johnson hinted "nobody was meant to follow lockdown rules to the letter" when he retracted his apology for Partygate. Lots of people now feel it's "them and us" with the government, on many things. (I've felt like that since the day that con man Tony Blair was elected, but that's another matter. And if Euan Blair is indeed going to be at the helm of digital ID: like father, like son.) Some people think that ID cards are going to be mission creep: starts as a "voluntary" scheme, then the goalposts are moved by stealth to make it compulsory. I'm sensing a strategy of this being released to the press to test the public reaction, with "adjustments" made once they see how the public reacts. It happened all the time in 2020: "masks might become compulsory in shops, more government guidance to follow." Then, behind the scenes, "yep, the public are still terrified and docile, we can keep playing with their minds."
Therefore, I think it is vital that there is some public resistance, even if it turns out to be in vain. It's reassuring to see that so far, the opponents of digital ID are not being castigated with "so, you want the immigrants to take over?", like those who have tried to remove the flags have been.