Digital ID will be mandatory in order to work in the UK, as part of plans to tackle illegal migration.
Sir Keir Starmer said the new digital ID scheme would make it tougher to work in the UK illegally and offer “countless benefits” to citizens, while his senior minister Darren Jones said it could be “the bedrock of the modern state”.
However, opposition parties argued the proposals would not stop people crossing the Channel in small boats.
The prime minister set out his plans in a broader speech to a gathering of world leaders, in which he said it had been “too easy” for people to work illegally in the UK because the centre-left had been “squeamish” about saying things that were “clearly true”.
Addressing the Global Progressive Action Conference in London – attended by politicians including Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney – Sir Keir said it was time to “look ourselves in the mirror and recognise where we’ve allowed our parties to shy away from people’s concerns”.
“It is not compassionate left-wing politics to rely on labour that exploits foreign workers and undercuts fair wages,” he said.
“The simple fact is that every nation needs to have control over its borders. We do need to know who is in our country.”
In a conversation following his speech, Sir Keir said he wanted the next election to be an “open fight” between Labour and Reform UK.
In response to the prime minister’s speech, Reform UK said the public was “waking up to the fact Starmer is just continuing the Tory legacy of high taxes and mass immigration”.
Despite having only five MPs, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party has been leading in the opinion polls for several months.
The prime minister suggested facing the challenge of Reform would be a big focus when he addresses party members at the Labour Party conference next week.
Sir Keir’s government has been under pressure to tackle the issue of illegal migration, with more than 50,000 migrants arriving on small boats since Labour came to power.
Announcing his plans for the new digital IDs, Sir Keir said the scheme would “make it tougher to work illegally in this country, making our borders more secure”.
He added: “It will also offer ordinary citizens countless benefits, like being able to prove your identity to access key services swiftly – rather than hunting around for an old utility bill.”
Jones, who is the PM’s chief secretary, said: “If we get this digital ID system working and the public being with us, that will be the bedrock of the modern state and will allow for really quite exciting public service reform in the future.”
Another Labour prime minister, Sir Tony Blair, tried to introduce compulsory ID cards but the idea was scrapped by the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition in 2010.
However, Sir Keir has recently said he believes the debate has “moved on in the last 20 years” as “we all carry a lot more digital ID now than we did”.
Labour believes its new proposal has public support, although more than a million people have signed a petition against the idea.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the plan would “do nothing to stop the boats” but would “end up being used against law-abiding citizens while crooks walk free”.
She also expressed concern about the security of the data saying it would be a risk to put the information “in one database”.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said his party would “fight tooth and nail” against the scheme which would “add to our tax bills and bureaucracy, whilst doing next to nothing to tackle channel crossings”.
Source- BBC
