By Jerome O’Reilly | @NationalReilly
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has abandoned a central plank of its proposed digital identity scheme by dropping plans to make digital ID mandatory for proving the right to work.
Under the revised approach, people will no longer be required to sign up to a new government digital ID programme in order to get a job, although digital identity checks will still be used from 2029 to verify legal working status.
This announcement follows widespread public dissatisfaction which prompted an online petition of 2.9 million signatures, along with a debate in Parliament. The success record of petitions is mixed, so it is heartening to see that, on this occasion, the voice of the people was heard.
It was also significant that all opposition parties opposed the legislation, along with many backbench Labour MPs. In fact, the only major political support that digital IDs received was from a selection of careerist Labour ministers and former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Labour’s unpopularity also helped to move public opinion against digital IDs. In August 2025, 57% of the public supported the policy, yet that figure fell to 38% in November after the government announced its plans. Labour now ranks fourth in the opinion polls and could drop to fifth within the next few weeks or months, with MRP polls indicating that it will lose hundreds of MPs at the next general election.
This is the 13th major u-turn of Starmer’s premiership, and it is now uncertain whether his rivals within Labour will put up with his woeful leadership, especially with key elections across the country in May.
The reasoning for the policy was flawed from the start. Starmer insisted that the introduction of digital ID would reduce illegal immigration because it would make illegal working harder to achieve.
However, most jobs already require proof of identity and a UK bank account for wages to be paid into. If you aren’t a British citizen, you have to provide an up-to-date share code from the government to prove your right to work. If a dodgy employer already does not ask workers for current forms of ID, what would be so special about a digital version that would suddenly compel them to comply with the law?
In reality, it was a cynical push to introduce another layer of draconian surveillance on ordinary British citizens, and it is a good thing that the public has largely rejected it.
However, it is not being scrapped in its entirety. The government now intends to allow alternative methods of digital verification, such as biometric passports or e-visas, to fulfil right-to-work checks.
Ministers have framed this adjustment as a refinement rather than an abandonment of the scheme, with officials emphasising that a full public consultation on the details will be launched soon. They argue that modernising the current paper-based right-to-work system will help to reduce fraud and abuse by moving verification online.
While the government maintains that digital IDs could still offer convenience in accessing a range of public services, from healthcare to banking, campaigners warn that even a voluntary system might become de facto compulsory in everyday life.
The debate over digital identity in the UK is likely to continue as the consultation process unfolds ahead of the scheme’s planned rollout. We can only hope that Labour runs out of time in this Parliament and that Reform UK and the other opposition parties stick to their word and scrap this wasteful and unnecessary plan for good.
