Sir Keir Starmer is expected to unveil plans to introduce digital identification cards for people living in the UK at the Labour Party conference this month.
The PM has been ‘exploring’ the idea in recent weeks and, while finer details of the scheme are allegedly still being ironed out, an announcement could come as early as the annual meet, which starts on September 28.
Starmer is determined to plough ahead with the scheme, which is part of efforts to overhaul the country’s asylum and immigration system, according to a report by the Financial Times.
In addition to dealing with the burden of hosting tens of thousands of asylum seekers, the Labour administration is under pressure to reduce the record number of migrants arriving in tiny boats over the Channel.
One option under consideration would give digital IDs to all people legally entitled to reside in Britain, whether citizens or those with legal immigration status, a source briefed on the matter told the newspaper.
The digital ID could be used for employment verification and rental agreements, though the government may still narrow the scope or revisit the plan, they added.
Earlier this month, the PM said that digital IDs could ‘play an important part’ in making Britain less attractive to illegal migrants.
However, critics of the scheme warned it could turn the country into a ‘dystopian nightmare’ if people are forced into ID checks ‘to go about our everyday lives’.
Rebecca Vincent, of Big Brother Watch, said earlier this month: ‘While Downing Street is scrambling to be seen as doing something about illegal immigration, we are sleepwalking into a dystopian nightmare where the entire population will be forced through myriad digital checkpoints to go about our everyday lives.
‘Mandatory digital ID… will not stop small boat crossings, but it will create a burden on the already law-abiding population to prove our right to be here.
‘It will turn Britain into a “Papers, please” society.’
Meanwhile, Gracie Bradley of Liberty said a new scheme was ‘likely to be even more intrusive, insecure and discriminatory’ than the Labour government’s failed 2006 plan to bring in ID cards.
Former Labour prime minister Tony Blair’s nascent card scheme was discarded by the incoming Coalition government in 2010.
Ms Bradley added that an ‘expensive and unjustified ID scheme… threatens our rights’.
Conservative justice spokesman Robert Jenrick also criticised the proposal earlier this month. He said, ‘Most employers who are employing individuals illegally are doing so knowingly.
‘Asking them to check ID cards rather than the current checks that they are already obliged to do is not going to make a blind bit of difference to illegal migration.’
A government spokesperson said Britain was committed to expanding the use of technology to make it easier for people to access services, pointing to existing systems such as e-visas and the NHS app.
‘We will look at any serious proposals that would help people access public services, including digital ID,’ the spokesperson said in a statement.
This is going to be another waste of money, and to think that Keir Starmer doesn’t know how to stop the boats from coming across from France, or doesn’t want to, given all the money that is spent annually.
If he wanted to stop the boats, he would find a way, but this is a manipulative move to introduce ID cards on the back of people’s outrage over mass immigration.
This is simply another tool for the government to monitor us, which is why they are so interested in AI.
If our government wanted to keep children safe, they would do so by eliminating the grooming gangs who are now operating in most towns and cities. But our government just wants to silence us.
He must think we are all extremely foolish because he thinks we think he will solve the problem when we know better. All Starmer does is make excuses and tell us any lies he can to destroy us and our identities.
He evidently doesn’t see migration as a problem, but what he does see as a problem is our complaining, but we have every right to complain.
Simply put, Starmer is tinkering around the edges while at the same time diminishing our freedoms, and that’s not okay at all.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 