BREAKING: Starmer Abandons Plans for Compulsory Digital ID

Sir Keir Starmer has abandoned plans for mandatory digital ID for workers amid concerns that it will undermine public trust in the scheme, though a voluntary version is still expected. The Times has the story.

The Prime Minister had previously announced that the IDs would be compulsory to verify someone’s right to work in the UK.

Instead, they will be optional when they are introduced in 2029, with workers given the choice of whether to use other documents to verify their identity digitally instead.

A Government source said that the compulsory element “was stopping conversation about what digital IDs could be used for generally”.

The source said: “Stepping back from mandatory-use cases will deflate one of the main points of contention. We do not want to risk there being cases of some 65 year-old in a rural area being barred from working because he hasn’t installed the ID.”

In September Starmer said that he would “make a new, free-of-charge digital ID mandatory for the right to work before the end of this Parliament”. He said that “we need to know who is in our country” and that the IDs would prevent migrants who “come here, slip into the shadow economy and remain here illegally”.

Anyone starting a new job would have been required to “show” the digital ID, which would then be automatically checked against a central database of those entitled to work in the UK.

While right-to-work checks will still be mandatory other forms of documentation, such as an electronic visa or a passport, will be valid. A consultation to start within weeks will explore which verification checks could be used.

Worth reading in full.

Another Starmer U-turn on a bad idea is good news. But for how long will it remain voluntary, is the question many will be asking.

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Jack the dog
Jack the dog
2 months ago

As our friends (ahem) the French say, he has chosen to reculer pour mieux sauter.

Or more probably, reculer pour mieux enculer.

Boomer Bloke
2 months ago
Reply to  Jack the dog

Oh, I say, steady on old chap

Tyrbiter
Tyrbiter
2 months ago
Reply to  Jack the dog

Let’s hope that it’s a case of s’enculer lui-meme.

huxleypiggles
2 months ago

There is some serious gaslighting going on here. Digital ID has been a wet dream for Bliar since he fell out of his pram and the rest of the globalist mafia are not going to give up on it either. Which means something is brewing, some sort of major incident which will necessitate, but honestly we really didn’t want to do it, Digital ID.

March 7th ?

modularist
2 months ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Indeed. This is just dropping the word ‘compulsory’ to try to get the heat off.
Want to go on social media? You will need ID to prove you are over 16. One Login is still being expanded.

FerdIII
2 months ago
Reply to  modularist

Interim state. ‘Voluntary’ until they have enough MP monkeys in a majority to pass ‘Compulsory’. They prob have a working group making the designs, plans and marketing, ‘to save granny and the children’s future we must…..’ etc. Usual roadmap.

Solentviews
Solentviews
2 months ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Possibly. But even if they wanted to, it would still take years and a huge amount of money and time. They don’t have much of either.

inamo
inamo
2 months ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

SMART electricity meter? Anyone?

Boomer Bloke
2 months ago

This man is a clown. The sooner his hands are removed from the levers of power and he is evicted from 10 Downing Street, the better.

EARLGRAY
EARLGRAY
2 months ago
Reply to  Boomer Bloke

He may well be a clown but he is simply the leader, the ringmaster of the circus, the head of a bunch of acrobats and jugglers who have long since ceased to be entertaining.

Matt Dalby
Matt Dalby
2 months ago
Reply to  EARLGRAY

It’s the WEF and other supranational bodies that are the ringmasters, or maybe they’re the organ grinders and Starmer, Macron etc are the dancing monkeys.

FerdIII
2 months ago
Reply to  Matt Dalby

I would guess monkeys would be more intelligent, less dangerous and certainly more entertaining than the ugly-actor-globalist cult in power.

transmissionofflame
2 months ago

Mandatory for company directors though

Andante
Andante
2 months ago

The Digital ID will be loaded onto people mobile phones automatically. However the Gummint said a couple of weeks ago that mobile phones of migrants will be confiscated, so as to find out who they are and who they might be talking to and stop them uploading videos onto tiktok showing the wonderful life they have in the UK. So the Digital ID can’t be used by migrants!!

fedtfup
fedtfup
2 months ago

I got excited when I read this but sounds like they’re still doing it it just won’t be mandatory? Until it is though. You’ll be offered the use of doing things with it or doing things the purposefully harder way until the harder way is no longer available. It feels like it will just be slower to get us all reliant on it than they’d hoped. I hope I’m wrong

Tyrbiter
Tyrbiter
2 months ago
Reply to  fedtfup

The thing is that sooner or later One Login will be found to be full of more holes than a string vest and it will have to be binned.

The only way that such schemes can ever be truly secure is when they are isolated away from the wider network of the internet which is how the spooks and the military use their secure systems with few problems. Doesn’t work for large userbases.

Tonka Rigger
2 months ago

This arse clown and his arse clown party of quarterwits will be long gone by 2029.

john1T
2 months ago
Reply to  Tonka Rigger

I damn well hope so.

Tyrbiter
Tyrbiter
2 months ago
Reply to  Tonka Rigger

We certainly need them to be, but getting rid of the whole clueless establishment (which is most of it) is a more difficult requirement.

Old Arellian
Old Arellian
2 months ago
Reply to  Tonka Rigger

Quarterwits? You’re being too kind

RTSC
RTSC
2 months ago

He realised he was going to meet substantial resistance to a compulsory scheme …. so they will introduce a “voluntary” one and steadily apply coercion to effectively make it compulsory.

mickie
mickie
2 months ago

If that article is from The Times, it really is very grammatically.poor.

Tyrbiter
Tyrbiter
2 months ago
Reply to  mickie

A consequence of socialist downgrading of education is that very few are taught spelling and grammar as those of us schooled almost 60 years ago were.

varmint
2 months ago

This is just more devious tactics. Government will realise that many people or even most of them not motivated by politics will simply take this ID card, and there will be more promises of making everything easier if they have one. Eventually those without one will have to jump through more and more hoops to get what they need and they will be worn down bit by bit till they eventually give up and we all end up having it.

Tyrbiter
Tyrbiter
2 months ago
Reply to  varmint

Some of us are bloody-minded enough to prefer death.

Hester
Hester
2 months ago

Idon’t trust them? why waste the money at all, its not as if the country is rolling in it.
He is up to something, he believes we are stupid.

Myra
2 months ago

A small step in the right direction, however I don’t think the digital ID is fully gone. There are numerous backdoor ways to push digital ID, it will just take longer.
A digital bill of rights is the way to go, else we will be fighting this issue and looking over our shoulders ad infinitum.

transmissionofflame
2 months ago

Something someone on the Lockdown Sceptics subreddit kindly posted: From June Slater Facebook page. Digital ID is not going anywhere. “Digital ID From a lawyer in our WhatsApp group 👇👇👇 Below is a plain-English, between-the-lines reading of the Telegraph article, translating the political language into what it actually signals. The short answer is: digital ID is not being abandoned at all — only the word “compulsory” is being softened, for now. ⸻ Headline vs reality: what’s really changed? Headline claim: “Keir Starmer abandons plans for compulsory digital ID” Reality: The government has abandoned immediate compulsion — not the system, not the infrastructure, and not the policy direction. This is a tactical retreat, not a strategic reversal. ⸻ The key sleight of hand: “optional” ≠ voluntary in practice The article repeatedly says digital ID will be “optional”, but then quietly explains that: • Right-to-work checks remain mandatory • Digital ID will be automatically checked against a central database • Employers will still be legally obliged to verify status • A consultation will decide which verification methods are acceptable Translation: You may not be forced to download the app on day one — but the system you must pass through still exists,… Read more »

Tyrbiter
Tyrbiter
2 months ago

Thanks ToF, that is absolutely the plan, which means we have to keep up the pressure on the known-to-be-insecure One Login system and its uses. I expect the organisations opposing Digital ID are experienced enough to realise that this is a pause rather than a cancellation.

Heretic
Heretic
2 months ago

Extremely important post!

In a nutshell, it is what the much-maligned David Icke called

“The Totalitarian Two-Step: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back”…

shred
shred
2 months ago

It has the fingermarks of the Nudge Unit all over it.
But does the silly b.. think that illegal workers such as junk food bikers or car washers working for sub contracting illegals won’t swap ids and ignore this Chinese style control?