Sir Keir Starmer ignored No 10 advice against making digital ID mandatory and presenting it as a measure to tackle Channel small boat crossings before he was forced to U-turn, The i Paper has learnt.
Senior sources said No 10’s internal polling and policy teams told the Prime Minister that voters would not believe the policy would work at tackling irregular migration, and that he should instead announce it as a way of modernising the state.
Starmer instead pressed ahead with a surprise announcement on 26 September, first revealed by The i Paper, insisting that digital ID would curb the prospect of illegal work for Channel migrants and therefore deter small boat crossings.
The plans received a backlash from the public, with almost three million people signing an online petition against their introduction and thousands of protesters marching in London in October.
Badenoch likens PM to ‘plastic bag in the wind’
The Government has now U-turned, making clear that using a new ID to pass incoming digital right-to-work checks will be optional, with other forms of identification to be accepted, following a major voter backlash against the idea after it was announced.
The i Paper understands the U-turn will also make digital ID cheaper for taxpayers, although the decision to water down the plans was not said to be linked to a call for Whitehall departments to find savings to fund the scheme.
It remains unclear how much the new digital ID will cost, but the Government does not recognise the £1.8bn costing estimate provided by the official Budget watchdog in November.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch seized on the change at Prime Minister’s Questions, saying Starmer had performed the 13th U-turn of his premiership because he was “clueless” and “blowing around like a plastic bag in the wind” with “no sense of direction whatsoever”.
Now senior sources have told The i Paper Starmer was advised against the policy he announced and has now been forced to abandon.
‘Mystery’ how policy was announced as immigration measure
A source involved in the planning for digital ID: “The No 10 polling guys told us repeatedly that the public wouldn’t buy it as an illegal immigration measure and the policy team were clear it wouldn’t work as one.
“It was a mystery how it ended up being announced as one.”
A second source also involved in the policy’s development said the framing of the policy was a misstep and this was a view shared ahead of the announcement in September.
No10 was advised that Starmer should focus the digital ID policy on modernisation of the state and making public services more efficient, and against mandatory and coupling it with irregular migration, they said.
Former home secretary Lord Blunkett, who tried and failed to introduce compulsory ID cards in Sir Tony Blair’s New Labour government, said the Government did not explain why the policy was important or how it would work.
“The original statement was not followed by a narrative or supportive statements or any kind of strategic plan which involved other ministers and those who are committed to this actually making the case,” he told the BBC.
‘Mandatory’ digital checks will still be introduced
“As a consequence, those who are opposed to the scheme, for all kinds of nefarious and very different reasons, some of them inexplicable, were able to mobilise public opinion and to get the online opposition to it up and running.”
At PMQs, Starmer insisted he was still going to introduce “mandatory” digital checks on the right to work to “make it harder for people to work illegally in this country”, but did not say these would be limited to a new digital ID.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves earlier told BBC Breakfast: “We are saying that you will need mandatory digital ID to be able to work in the UK.
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“Now the difference is whether that has to be one piece of ID, a digital ID card, or whether it could be an e-visa or an e-passport, and we’re pretty relaxed about what form that takes.”
It is the latest in a series of U-turns by the Labour Government, including last week’s decision to provide additional support for pubs facing large hikes in business rates.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting, seen as a potential challenger for Starmer’s leadership, told a conference in London on Tuesday that ministers should aim to “get it right first time”.
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