Claims that Labour has abandoned plans for compulsory digital ID are misleading, says Jonathan Swales, Reform UK Branch chair for Harrogate and Knaresborough before adding – what has been dropped is immediate compulsion — not the system, not the infrastructure, and not the policy direction. This is a tactical retreat, not a reversal.
Jonathan Swales, Reform UK, Harrogate, said:
Digital right-to-work checks remain mandatory. Central databases remain. Employers will still be legally required to verify status. A “consultation” will now decide which methods are acceptable — quietly steering everyone toward digital ID as the default option.
Calling this “optional” is sleight of hand. Over time, alternatives will become slower, riskier, and harder to use, until digital ID is unavoidable in practice.
The government admits the compulsory element was dropped because it was “stopping the conversation”. In plain English: public resistance came too early.
Digital ID has not been cancelled. It has been repackaged.
The destination hasn’t changed — only the route.
Both local Libdems and Greens are insistent that this represents a U-turn.
Councillor David Noland (Green Party):
I welcome the government’s recent U Turn on Digital ID cards. A projected cost of £18 billion would be better spent for example in the NHS, social care or improving railways in the North.
This authoritarian policy assumed that people used and carried smartphones. I agree with the many who saw it as a further erosion of our civil liberties.
