LONDON — Keir Starmer’s gone all-in on digital identification for Brits.

But while many MPs in the prime minister’s governing Labour Party back the idea in theory, there are plenty despairing at a botched communications strategy which they believe has set the wide-ranging policy up for a fall.

Under Starmer’s plans, digital ID will be required for right-to-work checks by 2029. Ministers insist the ID — a second attempt to land ID cards for Brits after a botched first go under Tony Blair — won’t track people’s location, spending habits or online activity. 

Yet Labour MPs feel a more sellable emphasis on improving people’s experience of public services has gotten lost.

Instead, Starmer’s government — with populist right-winger Nigel Farage breathing down its neck — has attempted to link the plan to a migration crackdown.

“It’s a no-brainer,” said Labour MP Allison Gardner, chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for digital identity. “It absolutely will make people’s lives easier, more secure [and] give them more control over their data. We need to explain it better to people, so that they understand that this is for them, and it’s not being done to them.”

Hard sell 

A consultation on the plans will be launched by the end of 2025, before legislation next year. The government’s huge majority means it’s highly likely to become law — but there’s a potentially bumpy road ahead.

Two decades after Blair’s New Labour first proposed plastic identity cards, Starmer wants to finish the job, pitching a plan to make digital ID mandatory for right-to-work checks as a way to deter irregular migration.

Yet the sweeping change, announced on the eve of Labour conference, didn’t get a mention in Starmer’s setpiece speech — and notably didn’t appear in the party’s election manifesto.

“The announcement hasn’t been handled well,” admitted a pro-digital ID Labour MP granted anonymity to speak candidly. “Our argument for it keeps changing but none of it is full-throated enough.”

The messaging has shifted since the initial push, too. Technology Secretary Liz Kendall later stressed giving “people power and control over their lives,” saying the public is too often “at the mercy of a system that does not work for us as well as it should.” That was only after a drop in poll ratings for the idea. A petition against it has meanwhile racked up close to three million signatures.

The shapeshifting rhetoric — painting digital ID first as a necessary inconvenience before calling it vital for state efficiency — caused some heads to spin.

“The government communication … has not learned from the mistakes made when digital ID was proposed 20 years ago,” said a second Labour MP, who thought the focus on immigration meant ministers weren’t “talking about the benefits it brings ordinary British citizens.” 

Red flags have also been also waved over compulsory right-to-work checks, given only the very wealthiest Brits never need to work — making it de facto mandatory.

“There’s been a kneejerk reaction, particularly to the word mandatory, which I think British people have naturally reacted against,” admitted Gardner, who argues voters should have a choice about using the scheme. “It’s a little bit of a bandwagon people have latched on to, to actually derail the entire concept.” 

Farage, eager to paint himself as a champion of civil liberties, has warned digital ID won’t stop “illegal immigration”  but will “be used to control and penalise the rest of us.”

Analysis by the New Britain Project think tank, shared with POLITICO, shows that Google searches for digital ID were elevated for around three weeks after the announcement compared to the typical one day spike for most policies.

Interest dwarfed other decisions too, with peak search traffic for digital ID 20 to 50 times higher than any other flagship policy terms in the last year.

Longstanding Labour MP Fabian Hamilton highlights the dilemma of digital ID: “Nobody likes compulsion, and it will only work if everybody has to have it.”

Despite Kendall expressing optimism about a digital key unlocking “better, more joined-up and effective public services,” Hamilton argues that prioritizing migration in the messaging is too simplistic. “I’m sorry to say that the legal migration is tilting the head at a certain part of the electorate that are very concerned about illegal migration and the tabloids,” he argues.

No silver bullet 

Whether digital ID works on its own terms — reducing irregular migration — is also hotly contested.

Right-to-work checks already exist in the U.K., with employees required to show documentation like a letter with their national insurance number.

“It may be helpful, but obviously it won’t affect fundamental factors [driving people to the U.K.] of family links or English language,” warns former Home Office Permanent Secretary Philip Rutnam.

He believes the most challenging part of the scheme will be “establishing the status of many people beyond doubt” given some residents may not have formal ID. “There are millions of people whose status it may bring into question,” Rutnam says. “Their status may not be what they have understood it to be.”

That’s sparked fears among some in Westminster of another Windrush scandal. That debacle saw some people who emigrated to Britain as part of a post-Second World War rebuilding effort later denied rights and, in the most extreme cases, deported under a scattershot Home Office clampdown. 

“We need to be very, very careful,” warns former U.K. Border Force Director-General Tony Smith. Smith says digital ID is “not a panacea,” and warns illegal working is likely to remain because unscrupulous employers won’t suddenly become law-abiding.

Tech troubles

The British government’s ability to handle such a vast amount of sensitive data securely is also far from certain. Kendall has stressed that the data behind digital ID won’t be centralized and says individuals will be able to see who has accessed their information.

That’s not enough for skeptics. 

A catastrophic Ministry of Defence breach, which leaked details of Afghans applying to resettle in Britain after the Taliban’s return to power, shows the danger of sensitive details reaching the wrong hands.

“The track record’s not been great,” Smith warns. “You are trying to turn round a huge tanker in the ocean here, and I do worry that we haven’t perhaps got the necessary gear.” 

Rutnam agrees digital ID will be a “very demanding administrative exercise” that politicians need to understand is “complex and inherently risky.” 

Perhaps more damning for digital ID’s support among the Labour faithful is anxiety about future governments using the information malevolently. “Faith in our institutions of government and of the state is at an all-time low,” says Hamilton, citing a “bizarre situation” where some Brits lump digital ID in with Covid-19 vaccines as a government conspiracy.

One Labour MP vehemently opposed to digital ID says ministers are so far failing to consider “what happens when we’re gone” and warns any safeguards “can be unpicked” by subsequent administrations.

Starmer has spoken about digital ID as a positive alternative to rifling through drawers looking for “three bills when you want to get your kids into school or apply for this or apply for that.”

“F*ck you,” the anonymous Labour MP above said in response. “I can’t believe that. Is that the best you’ve got for giving away fundamental rights?”

Still, Gardner is pleading for colleagues not to block this modern innovation: “We are at risk of throwing a very, very good baby out with the bathwater if we resist this and just keep ourselves in the dark ages.”

Emilio Casalicchio and Dan Bloom contributed to this report.