Identity cards to access public services such as the NHS would help curb illegal migration - Andrew Vine

Rishi Sunak’s pledge to stop small boats heading for the beaches of Kent looks less credible with each daily arrival, and his Home Secretary’s insistence that illegal immigrants will be flown to Rwanda is adrift in the realm of fantasy.

Sir Keir Starmer isn’t fooling anyone that he has the upper hand on the Government as it struggles to control the flow of migrants.

His keynote policy announcement that he would strike a new deal with Europe to control numbers was barely out of his mouth before being slapped down by the EU. Our neighbours across the Channel have more than enough headaches of their own on immigration to start worrying about ours.

Although the numbers arriving by boat will probably fall as winter sets in and the crossings become even more hazardous, that should not disguise the fact illegal migration is essentially out of control and the plans of the two party leaders to get a grip on it don’t inspire much confidence.

Increased cooperation with France is common to the policies of both, and there is much common sense in Sir Keir’s assertion that the people-smuggling gangs putting boatloads of migrants to sea should be targeted with the same vigour as terrorists.

But as things stand, the first summer of a new Government, whether Labour or Conservative, is likely to be a repeat of the one just past, with record numbers of boats hitting the beaches, or their occupants saved from drowning by rescue vessels.

Years of failure to stem the flow of migrants crossing from France despite massive investment in more patrols on land and sea point to that. With each passing summer of small boats, it becomes increasingly apparent that tackling people smugglers on the beaches around Calais and Dunkirk is only half the answer.

What both Mr Sunak and Sir Keir shy away from is truly radical action to discourage migrants from embarking on the journey to Britain in the first place. And that isn’t threats of deportation to Rwanda or being held on a barge in a harbour somewhere on the south coast.

It’s about reducing the pull factor of Britain, where illegal immigrants can disappear into a huge underground economy worth £150bn a year, earn a cash-in-hand living, find somewhere to live and access the NHS because nobody checks if they have permission to be in Britain.

We simply don’t know how many people are living in our country without having the right to be here, an absurd state of affairs which successive governments – both Labour and Conservative – have allowed to become the norm.

The answer is staring us in the face. It is past time that Britain introduced identity cards in order to access public services.

Two years ago, the French president Emmanuel Macron correctly pointed out that their use in most European countries made it far harder for illegal migrants to disappear, and that’s why so many were heading for our shores.

There’s a historic distaste for identity checks in Britain, but we need to get over it, not least because we already accept such a system in all but name.

We all need identification to withdraw money at a bank or building society. We need to prove we have the right to live in Britain when applying for a job with any reputable company or in the public sector. How identity cards could help curb illegal migration - Andrew VineA young-looking 18-year-old on a night out with friends will be required to provide proof of age in order to buy a drink.

Even the store loyalty cards most of us carry in our wallets or purses are a form of ID card, telling supermarkets our name, address and probably age.

The websites where a majority of people do at least some of their shopping hold vast amounts of data about us, and most people simply couldn’t care less about that, if they even think of it at all.

Arguments that ID cards would infringe civil liberties have long been overtaken by the way we live now, so we should just get on and introduce them. They work in Europe.

At a stroke, one of the factors that makes Britain so attractive to those who wish to vanish as soon as possible after stepping onto one of our beaches would be addressed.