All UK citizens must carry a set of identification slabs with them at all times, under plans from MP Steve Reed to defend Britain’s farms from foot-and-mouth disease.

The slabs, officially designated as identification monoliths, are made from four inch thick fine-grade granite roughly the same shape and size as tombstone, and are plated with anodised titanium; a full set of seven must be presented to Environment Agency goons during arbitrary spot checks on pain of summary stabbing.

The last recorded case of foot-and-mouth in the UK was in 2007, which was traced to an infected bap wedged in a storm drain. Ministers hope that stopping heavily encumbered citizens at armoured checkpoints every 70ft will, in conjunction with advanced AI algorithms, help track and prevent any potential outbreaks of the disease before they can happen, even if they weren’t going to in the first place.

The bill is the brainchild of Environment Secretary Steve Reed. “There were no cases of foot-and-mouth in Britain last year,” announced Mr Reed at a constituency Q&A last week. “With all of us rowing in the same direction, let’s bring that down to ‘zero’!”

Most, but not every, human rights group in Europe has declared this new law to be blatantly punitive legislation which targets the electorate. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs had been renamed during the leadership of Boris Johnson, who added an additional “o” to the word “Food“. This made it the longest named ministerial department by a single letter, and therefore the most important.

Prime Minister Kier Starmer changed the spelling back following the landslide results of a national referendum, and a red-faced and blubbing Reed announced his foot-and-mouth policy later that day. “You’ll all pay for this!” he shrieked, presumably talking about something else.

The ID slabs themselves come in a set of pretty colours, which certainly makes up for all the masons who perished from acute silicosis and wrist cramp after carving nearly half a billion of them.

Public reaction to this legislation appears mixed. A ministerial report declared a three-month pilot scheme in Rutland a “resounding success” when it resulted in only one confirmed outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, after a contaminated ID slab was dragged across a heath. Fatal hernias went up by 4000%, but overall dissent and personal expression dropped by nearly three quarters.

Citizens will receive their ID slabs as soon as Royal Mail works out why all their postmen are dying.