'Everyone will need a digital ID card to work in the UK,' Sir Keir Starmer warns
“You will not be able to work in the United Kingdom if you do not have a digital ID,” Sir Keir Starmer has said, as he attempts to crack down on illegal migration.
The Prime Minister made the announcement at the Global Progress Action (GPA) summit in London, before joining a panel with Canadian and Australian prime ministers Mark Carney and Anthony Albanese.
The digital ID will be compulsory for anyone who wants to work in the UK, Sir Keir said, and pledged it would be introduced ahead of the next Parliament.
People will not be required to carry the ID, which will be held on smartphones, or asked to produce it.
Sir Keir has called the plans an “enormous opportunity” that will make it tougher for people to work illegally.
French President Emmanuel Macron and other European leaders have been pushing the UK to remove the “pull factors” for small boat crossings, and have cited a lack of ID cards in Britain as a key issue.
However, it has already faced opposition from the left and right wings of politics, with Jeremy Corbyn and Nigel Farage united in their condemnation.
Reform UK called the plans a “cynical ploy” designed to “fool” voters into thinking something is being done about immigration.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch also dismissed the plans as a “gimmick that will do nothing to stop the boats”.
The Liberal Democrats said they would not support mandatory digital ID where people are “forced to turn over their private data just to go about their daily lives”.
At the GPA Conference, Sir Keir told fellow centre-left leaders from around the globe that “we’ve got to look ourselves in the mirror and recognise where we’ve allowed our parties to shy away from people’s concerns”.
“Now you will all have issues in your own countries, but in Britain, it’s illegal migration, and I suspect that may be the same in a number of other countries,” the Prime Minister said.
“For too many years, it’s been too easy for people to come here, slip into the shadow economy and remain here illegally.
“Frankly, we have been squeamish about saying things that are clearly true.
“It’s not just that it is not compassionate, left-wing politics to rely on labour that exploits foreign workers and undercuts fair wages.
“But the simple fact that every nation needs to have control over its borders. We do need to know who is in our country.”
He continued: “Our immigration system does need to be fair if we want to maintain that binding contract that our politics is built on.
“Otherwise, it undermines trust, undermines people’s faith that we are on their side and their belief that the state can and will work for them.
“And that is why today I am announcing this Government will make a new, free of charge, digital ID mandatory for the right to work by the end of this parliament.
“Let me spell that out,” the Prime Minister warned, “you will not be able to work in the United Kingdom if you do not have a digital ID. It’s as simple as that.”
Sir Keir made clear the pitch he will make to voters at the next election, that he predicts will be a battle between Labour and Mr Farage’s Reform UK.
The Prime Minister said the electorate faces “a very different proposition with Reform and Nigel Farage”.
He claimed the “battle of our times is between patriotic national renewal … versus something which is turning toxic”.
Sir Keir said he would be “majoring in” on this in his Labour Party Conference speech next week.