Keir Starmer has grabbed at this New Labour policy from the 2000s in order to distract from his party’s 2020s woes. Tackling illegal immigration requires a meaningful deterrent to stop people coming here in the first place and Labour has not explained how this will achieve that. After all, compulsory ID hasn’t stopped illegal immigration into the EU.
What's more, the Prime Minister’s Chief Secretary has said that these cards, once introduced, “will be the bedrock of the modern state”. This fills a lot of people with dread - this will shut off the NHS, for example, to the vulnerable and elderly who struggle with technology.
This idea - for which Labour has no mandate as it was not mentioned during the General Election - will cost many billions of taxpayers’ money and will saddle British citizens and businesses with yet more bureaucracy and cost for no gain. The government should scrap it and address, instead, their ballooning costs of welfare, rising unemployment, a stagnant economy and their addiction to hiking taxes.