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The Guardian
06-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
One year of Labour - Politics Weekly live at Crossed Wires festival
One year on from Keir Starmer's election victory and Labour are well behind Reform in the polls, while the government is already having to bend to the will of its backbenchers. So how can Starmer recover? Kiran Stacey talks to Jonathan Ashworth, the chief executive of Labour Together and former MP for Leicester South, and Marie Tidball, the Labour MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, about the party's first year in government, live at the Crossed Wires podcast festival in Sheffield
Spectator
24-06-2025
- Politics
- Spectator
Brits don't want digital ID cards
The vexed issue of compulsory ID is, once again, on the cards. 'BritCard' is being billed as a 'progressive digital identity for Britain' by Labour Together, the think tank that put forward the scheme earlier this month. The digital ID card has been endorsed by dozens of Labour MPs, and No. 10 is said to be interested in the scheme, which is being touted as a way to crack down on illegal migration, rogue landlords and exploitative work. But concerns about privacy appear to have gone out the window. Tony Blair has been at the digital ID game a long time Perhaps it is no surprise that Keir Starmer's government appears to be warming to a rollout of digital ID cards. Tony Blair has been at the digital ID game a long time. He's argued it's necessary for public health, to save taxpayers' money and to control migration. According to Blair, 'digital ID is the disruption the UK desperately needs'. On the face of it, all this presents a puzzle. Britain's lack of appetite for compulsory ID is so marked that you could almost consider it a national characteristic, like a predilection for queuing or tea. Hence the pronouncement by Boris Johnson in 2004 that he would 'take that (ID) card out of my wallet and physically eat it in the presence of whatever emanation of the state has demanded that I produce it'. Boris is not alone in being so vehemently anti-ID cards. So why does the spectre of digital ID keep reappearing? Perhaps the answer lies with an informal Labour establishment working behind, or alongside, the government. Labour Together was set up in 2015 by a group of MPs – including Steve Reed, the now-Environment Minister – who wanted to get the party back into power. The BritCard report's lead author Kirsty Innes' previous job was at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. In 2021, she wrote a report making the case for vaccine passports. It looks as if the reason digital ID won't go away is that, far from there being a groundswell of public demand for it, this half-hidden group really, really wants it. That might explain another puzzling thing: the extraordinarily poor quality of the public discourse about the subject. Take Labour Together's opening gambit in the report's foreword by MPs Jake Richards and Adam Jogee: 'This is your country. You have a right to be here. This will make your life easier. It is at the heart of the social contract'. Such disjointed statements belong more to a speech by a propagandist than a serious policy document. A vague appeal to nationalist sentiments is followed by the promise of 'convenience' which seems to accompany so much of the sales talk around the expansion of the digital state. The claim that digital ID somehow fulfils the social contract – the democratic concept which makes political authority conditional on respect for fundamental rights – is baffling. Baffling until you read further and discover the link is an attempt to convince the public that digital ID might be the solution to tackling illegal immigration. In a poll which forms the basis for the main argument, respondents were asked to what extent they would support digital ID if used by employers, landlords and public service providers to check a person's legal status. Some 80 per cent replied they would support such checks. And so Labour Together concluded that digital ID would be 'immensely popular'. But when asked about the 'most significant benefits' of digital ID, only 29 per cent thought it might deter illegal immigrants from coming to the UK or accessing public services. Meanwhile, 40 per cent feared that digital ID could be misused by government; and 23 per cent thought it could increase the black economy. The disparity illustrates something well known in the polling world: question is all. Frame something a particular way and you'll get one result; frame it another and you'll get something quite different. Polls have become tools of political persuasion. Too often, those commissioning them appear to have decided what outcome they want. As a result, they can be used to create the impression there's public support for something. That feeds into a lazy 'we might as well – everyone else is doing it' kind of thinking, a line children often use on their parents. Polly Toynbee, writing in the Guardian, uses it in her comment piece on the Labour Together proposal. We might as well agree to digital ID, she suggests, because privacy is already lost: 'Some will protest at the apparent loss of a romantic freedom, the right to vanish and start life anew, the call of the open road. But that's a fairytale, a fantasy of a bygone era. Everyone knows everything already'. Algorithms throw up personalised adverts, ergo, she concludes, 'better to control everything from one government-run base'. This kind of unthinking deflection makes civil liberty campaigners put their heads in their hands. Privacy became a basic right in modern democracies for a reason: why are policy people proposing to casually abandon a core principle? And why are they disregarding very real concerns about putting huge amounts of personal information into a leaky centralised system? Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Andrew Orlowski points out that One Login, which links our personal identification documents to other government bodies and third parties, has a terrible track record on data security. 'An insecure system has serious consequences,' he says. 'It not only puts individuals at risk of identity theft and impersonation, but also makes defrauding the government much easier…An ID system like One Login is where criminal gangs would go first, and BritCard will forcibly enrol you into it'. Politicians and policy wonks throwing lines out until they finally get a bite from enough of the public won't do. In a functioning democracy, public reasoning has to be of a certain standard if it is to lead to workable policies underpinned by genuine public consent. Shouting 'yay! Disruption!', as Blair appears to, won't cut it – nor will Toynbee's absurd claim that digital ID might help see off Nigel Farage. Radical departures from core values need proper consideration to ensure they serve the common good, not partisan interests. The Home Affairs Committee has launched an inquiry into the potential benefits and risks of digital ID. Let's hope that, as the parliamentary body charged with the scrutiny of domestic affairs, it will take a long hard look at both principles and consequences. The truth is that Brits don't want, or need, ID cards.
The Guardian
09-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Digital ID cards would be good for Britain – and a secret weapon for Labour against Reform
'Papers please!' Those words strike terror in a thousand war movies. Stasi or Gestapo officers are a breed apart from the unarmed plod who demands no ID cards from free British people. So when the government contemplates a universal ID, it sends instinctive twitches down some spines. Though not many. Times and public attitudes have changed. And so have the political imperatives, for it seems that, for a Labour government struggling to seize the narrative after a difficult year in power, digital ID cards – and the sense of national belonging they could strengthen – may just be the weapon needed to fight off the ever-rising threat of Nigel Farage's Reform. Look to Labour Together, the thinktank closest to government, which has just published a paper calling for a digital ID system – a 'verifiable digital credential downloaded onto a user's smartphone, which could be instantly checked by employers or landlords using a free verifier app'. One of its main virtues is simplification. There are currently 191 ways to set up accounts and access services on with 44 sign-in methods. A universal ID is popular: More in Common finds 53% in favour, with 25% strongly in favour and only 19% against, backed by a majority of supporters of Labour, the Tories, the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK, and across all ages. The co-author of the foreword to the report, the Rother Valley MP Jake Richards, talks in terms of 'the citizen taking back control of their own data and public services'. One portal, no more forgotten passwords, simple, safe, everything in one place for everyone. What's not to like? Some will protest at the apparent loss of a romantic freedom, the right to vanish and start life anew, the call of the open road. But that's a fairytale, a fantasy of a bygone era. Everyone knows everything already. As Richards puts it to me: 'Last night I drank a Guinness. This morning I'm getting ads for Guinness.' The algorithms catch us already everywhere. Buy a lampshade and lampshades chase you all over the internet (which suggests algorithmic cluelessness: I've already bought that lampshade). You may restrict what you let out, but AI will find you, assessing your age and address from a host of databases. Better to control everything from one government-run base. It seems clear to me that the report is fundamentally about immigration – Labour wants to make it easier to identify people with no right to live here or claim public services. The policies behind the 'stop the boats' and 'smash the gangs' slogans can never hope to guard every beach from every rubber dinghy, whatever politicians pretend, any more than they can 'end crime'. But ID would be a second line of defence against undocumented migrants who would find getting a job, renting a flat or using public services near impossible without one. Curbing benefit fraud is also cited as another argument in favour by poll respondents in the report; with ID cards for all claimants, those ever-suspicious of benefit cheats, despite the very low fraud levels at just 2.2%, might be reassured. ID cards, designed to guard borders, could calm some alarm at migration among those who wildly overestimate the numbers arriving undocumented. The report forcefully labels it the 'BritCard', the first of its kind since the second world war. With a groundswell of support among the new cohort of Labour MPs, Richards says it's not just red wallers in favour, but everyone who's alarmed by Reform's frightening advance. Former home secretaries back it – Alan Johnson, David Blunkett, Charles Clarke, Jack Straw, Amber Rudd, plus William Hague. Tony Blair has always advocated it, with a tortured history of trying to introduce a plastic 'entitlement' card. First tried in 2003, the idea was backed by the Met police commissioner, who called it an 'absolutely essential' tool in the war against terrorism. By 2010 it was briefly available to some, but abolished by the incoming coalition government. The cost was a killer: £85 for a combined card and passport. This time a universal digital ID would be free, say its promoters. The authors would make it mandatory – Jake Richards wouldn't. But that may make little difference once it became near-impossible to access anything without it. Real risks need to be resolved first, as a computer rejecting you unjustly would cut off access to everything. The Home Office would have to improve radically, given its track record. We cannot forget that some Windrush victims are still waiting for compensation while others dare not approach the untrusted Home Office, source of their trauma. Any system would need cast-iron guarantees that being denied services on the basis of not having a valid BritCard would be dealt with instantly by senior enough officials to make robust decisions with rapid appeal to courts not blocked by backlogs. But the political advantages are crystal clear. The almost 37,000 migrants arriving by boat last year signify a state's loss of control. It has been reported that some would-be arrivals in Calais choose the UK because it doesn't have ID cards, unlike most of the EU. Adjudicating who is entitled to be here is the state's first duty, controlling who shares in a democracy and the public services that voters pay into. ID cards are a social democratic cause, because they help define security not only as border controls for who comes in, but as the right for everyone here to share in our mutual social security. In truth this is a political rebranding of what's happening already. E-visas are rolling out to all foreign residents, with the existing One Login and Wallet doing the same digital identity work. Make it one ID system and the government can claim the political credit. Its promoters relish a public fight with civil liberties and privacy groups to prove Labour's seriousness about national identity. Watch the dash to leave the European convention on human rights (ECHR), promoted by the now near-identical Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage. Labour will rightly have none of it. No 10 is not yet committed on digital ID cards – but lest anyone think Labour lacks a pride and purpose when it comes to British identity, this is the time to bring in ID cards to endow everyone with proof of their national rights. Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
Yahoo
08-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Digital ID cards could be Starmer's poll tax
In March 1990, shops and cars in Covent Garden were set ablaze in the worst rioting the capital had seen for a century. Few things had angered the public like the new community charge. But something else happened too, which has been largely forgotten. Councils saw their revenue crash, as millions of names disappeared from the voter rolls. Now Sir Keir Starmer's favourite think tank has proposed what could turn out to be his very own poll tax. 'BritCard' is the name for a new digital ID app advanced by Labour Together, the think tank once run by Morgan McSweeney, who is now Starmer's chief of staff. The demand 'papers, please!' is not popular with voters, so to make it more palatable BritCard comes wrapped in the language of civic nationalism, serving as a cure for illegal immigration. The app and proposed wallet will be rebranded BritCard, to give us a nice warm, fuzzy feeling. We will love it so much that they believe it will morph into a full-blown digital ID system, acting as 'a familiar feature of daily life for everyone in the country'. But there are two serious problems here, and they are set on a collision course. First, BritCard will be mandatory, so we will be forced to use it or go off-grid entirely. Second – and this should alarm us all – Labour Together proposes that BritCard will use the Government's One Login digital identity service, which is mentioned 13 times in the proposal. This has become an expensive and sprawling Government IT project that has engaged hundreds of contractors, and cost taxpayers over £300m. What we know about it is very troubling – concerns have been raised about the security of the project at the deepest levels of the state. When we create a One Login account, it hoovers up our personal identification documents. This ID becomes the key that unlocks other government services, so an insecure system has serious consequences. It not only puts individuals at risk of identity theft and impersonation, but also makes defrauding the Government much easier. A fake ID can get you a long way. Phishing gangs accessed the records of 100,000 taxpayers, HMRC officials admitted last week, and used the IDs to steal an estimated £47m. An ID system like One Login is where criminal gangs would go first, and BritCard will forcibly enrol you into it. The Telegraph has reported the concerns of senior risk and cybersecurity staff working on One Login in some detail. The system was being accessed and modified by staff and contractors without the required level of security. Parts of the system were being developed in Romania, a fact that had eluded top management at the Government Digital Service (GDS). 'It's Horizon all over again,' one global security expert told this newspaper in April, referring to the notorious Post Office computer system. Of the 39 requirements in the National Cybersecurity Centre's cybersecurity checklist list CAF, One Login still only meets 21. But instead of taking the warnings seriously, One Login's senior management at GDS turned on the messengers who had brought them the bad news, dispersing the independent risk and cybersecurity team that first raised the issues. One Login's management subsequently began to mark their own homework. And earlier this year, a 'red team' exercise revealed how easily the system could be captured by hostile parties. The penetration test confirmed that intruders could breeze right in and take control of One Login without anyone noticing. Now recall GDS's own words – made in a business case that it refuses to release to the public – that an insecure One Login would empower 'hostile actors seeking to disrupt national infrastructure', with 'severe consequences for a large number of people'. As for Labour Together's proposition that a digital ID will help magically fix mass immigration, technology is not really the problem. Asylum seekers are already issued with a compulsory ID, but that doesn't stop them from melting into the underground economy, where the ID is never checked. And undocumented arrivals can gain a valid identity from the Home Office because it is promiscuously issuing credentials to undocumented migrants, taking at face value that they are who they say they are. Going digital won't fix either. Labour Together also thinks the public will rally around a digital ID app. 'Our polling revealed extremely strong public support for using a digital identity system for a range of use cases,' argues Labour Together. But only some. Polling by YouGov finds that around a fifth of UK consumers would not be comfortable with having an internationally recognised digital ID card or wallet like BritCard. Fewer than half, or 44pc, want a government ID that stores their biometric data, according to a survey for British payments processor History doesn't repeat itself exactly, but it can rhyme. In 1990, millions went off-grid to avoid a hated new tax. Of course, it is very difficult to disappear today. But millions of us will face a profound moral choice similar to one that voters faced in 1990, as both the poll tax and digital ID were made compulsory. Must I expose myself to criminals and identity theft, or do I refuse to go along with this government scheme? Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
08-06-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Digital ID cards could be Starmer's poll tax
In March 1990, shops and cars in Covent Garden were set ablaze in the worst rioting the capital had seen for a century. Few things had angered the public like the new community charge. But something else happened too, which has been largely forgotten. Councils saw their revenue crash, as millions of names disappeared from the voter rolls. Now Sir Keir Starmer's favourite think tank has proposed what could turn out to be his very own poll tax. 'BritCard' is the name for a new digital ID app advanced by Labour Together, the think tank once run by Morgan McSweeney, who is now Starmer's chief of staff. The demand 'papers, please!' is not popular with voters, so to make it more palatable BritCard comes wrapped in the language of civic nationalism, serving as a cure for illegal immigration. The app and proposed wallet will be rebranded BritCard, to give us a nice warm, fuzzy feeling. We will love it so much that they believe it will morph into a full-blown digital ID system, acting as 'a familiar feature of daily life for everyone in the country'. But there are two serious problems here, and they are set on a collision course. First, BritCard will be mandatory, so we will be forced to use it or go off-grid entirely. Second – and this should alarm us all – Labour Together proposes that BritCard will use the Government's One Login digital identity service, which is mentioned 13 times in the proposal. This has become an expensive and sprawling Government IT project that has engaged hundreds of contractors, and cost taxpayers over £300m. What we know about it is very troubling – concerns have been raised about the security of the project at the deepest levels of the state. When we create a One Login account, it hoovers up our personal identification documents. This ID becomes the key that unlocks other government services, so an insecure system has serious consequences. It not only puts individuals at risk of identity theft and impersonation, but also makes defrauding the Government much easier. A fake ID can get you a long way. Phishing gangs accessed the records of 100,000 taxpayers, HMRC officials admitted last week, and used the IDs to steal an estimated £47m. An ID system like One Login is where criminal gangs would go first, and BritCard will forcibly enrol you into it. The Telegraph has reported the concerns of senior risk and cybersecurity staff working on One Login in some detail. The system was being accessed and modified by staff and contractors without the required level of security. Parts of the system were being developed in Romania, a fact that had eluded top management at the Government Digital Service (GDS). 'It's Horizon all over again,' one global security expert told this newspaper in April, referring to the notorious Post Office computer system. Of the 39 requirements in the National Cybersecurity Centre's cybersecurity checklist list CAF, One Login still only meets 21. But instead of taking the warnings seriously, One Login's senior management at GDS turned on the messengers who had brought them the bad news, dispersing the independent risk and cybersecurity team that first raised the issues. One Login's management subsequently began to mark their own homework. And earlier this year, a 'red team' exercise revealed how easily the system could be captured by hostile parties. The penetration test confirmed that intruders could breeze right in and take control of One Login without anyone noticing. Now recall GDS's own words – made in a business case that it refuses to release to the public – that an insecure One Login would empower 'hostile actors seeking to disrupt national infrastructure', with 'severe consequences for a large number of people'. As for Labour Together's proposition that a digital ID will help magically fix mass immigration, technology is not really the problem. Asylum seekers are already issued with a compulsory ID, but that doesn't stop them from melting into the underground economy, where the ID is never checked. And undocumented arrivals can gain a valid identity from the Home Office because it is promiscuously issuing credentials to undocumented migrants, taking at face value that they are who they say they are. Going digital won't fix either. Labour Together also thinks the public will rally around a digital ID app. 'Our polling revealed extremely strong public support for using a digital identity system for a range of use cases,' argues Labour Together. But only some. Polling by YouGov finds that around a fifth of UK consumers would not be comfortable with having an internationally recognised digital ID card or wallet like BritCard. Fewer than half, or 44pc, want a government ID that stores their biometric data, according to a survey for British payments processor History doesn't repeat itself exactly, but it can rhyme. In 1990, millions went off-grid to avoid a hated new tax. Of course, it is very difficult to disappear today. But millions of us will face a profound moral choice similar to one that voters faced in 1990, as both the poll tax and digital ID were made compulsory.
