Every adult in the UK might soon be forced to carry a digital ID as part of new plans expected to be announced today (26th September) by the Prime Minister.

As the UK Government continues to flounder in the polls with a 69% disapproval rating, and with Nigel Farage’s Reform nipping at Keir Starmer’s heels, the move to introduce a compulsory digital ID has been floated as a way to convince voters that Labour is serious about tackling migration.

First reported in The i Paper, the scheme would allow UK citizens and residents to verify their immigration status using a smartphone app, making it more difficult for undocumented migrants to obtain employment. However, any consultation will also examine how it would be used by those without a device. 

It’s unclear, however, what the proposed ‘BritCards’ would add to the immigration debate, given that 2022 rules already require right-to-work checks, and the Home Office provides online systems to verify non-UK and Irish citizens’ status, such as the controversial eVisa scheme.

Writing in the Telegraph ahead of today’s speech, Starmer said that his Government would make the free of charge, digital IDs mandatory for the right to work by the end of the current Parliament in 2029, and linked its introduction to the debate surrounding illegal immigration.

“There is no doubt that for years, Left-wing parties, including my own, did shy away from people’s concerns around illegal immigration,” wrote Starmer, “It has been too easy for people to enter the country, work in the shadow economy and remain illegally.”

Labour has been open about its ambitions, with the influential Labour Together think-tank, closely aligned with the party leadership, publishing a report this summer arguing the potential benefits of a mandatory digital ID, especially in relation to immigration.

Starmer’s frontbench team also seem fully on board with the idea. Last month, Pat McFadden, chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, told the Times that the UK should follow the example of Estonia, where 90% of citizens use digital IDs to access services, as a way to ‘tackle small boats’.

Meanwhile, Labour grandee Harriet Harman has said digital IDs would deter migrants from heading to the UK to work illegally, while this month, the new Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood said she has “always been in favour of ID cards”.

Up until now, the debate behind digital IDs was as much about access to essential services as proving immigration status, with the Government saying it would build on the legacy of the Gov.UK Wallet and One Login, and could even be used to prove age when buying booze.

Those laudable ambitions may have taken a backseat, however, with the Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy, telling this morning’s BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the new digital IDs won’t be used to access the benefits system or essential services like the NHS.

“The measures that we’re proposing today are about dealing with people who are coming to the UK who are able to work illegally for many, many years without being found out,” she said.

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The Government’s plans have been muddied by the rising popularity of Reform UK, which holds tackling immigration as a central tenet of its ambitions for power. 

The right-leaning party headed by Farage has soared in the polls following public dissatisfaction with Labour, making the most of the small boats issue – so much so that a fresh poll from YouGov shows that a Reform UK Government would be a near-certainty if an election were held tomorrow.

Farage recently hit out against the popular Indefinite Leave to Remain system which has provided people the right to live and work in the UK without reapplying for visa fees – a policy that would remove a key pathway to citizenship in the UK and would put thousands of people at risk of losing their legal residency.

Tellingly, Farage himself does not believe that the plans for a digital ID will work, writing on X that “it will make no difference to illegal immigration, but it will be used to control and penalise the rest of us”, putting him in the strange company of civil groups like Big Brother Watch, which likewise argued the plans would amount to the UK becoming a ‘checkpoint society’.