Labour MPs are questioning whether Sir Keir Starmer can hold on to power after he performed yet another U-turn as prime minister by ditching plans for mandatory digital ID.
The government has reversed course on policy issues at least 11 times so far, including by raising the inheritance tax relief threshold for farmers after months of protest and scrapping a raft of benefits cuts under the threat of a backbench revolt.
The latest decision comes amid growing concern over the direction of Sir Keir’s beleaguered Labour government in the face of disastrous approval ratings, with the prime minister facing mounting questions about his position.
Sir Keir last year said Labour would introduce a digital ID system that would be voluntary in most cases but mandatory for right-to-work checks. However, these plans were thrown into confusion on Tuesday night after it emerged that ministers were looking at rowing back on the compulsory element, allowing other digital documents to be used for right-to-work checks.
The U-turn, which has sparked a fresh wave of criticism from Labour backbenchers who believe the prime minister’s position is at risk, came just hours after health secretary Wes Streeting told a conference in London that the government should aim to “get it right first time”.
One despairing minister told The Independent: “Nobody knows what is going to happen next or what we are even doing.”
A senior Labour backbencher added: “It just feels like the government is in freefall at the moment. It is a complete shambles. It feels like this government is just holding on until May, and hoping that they can get through the moment of danger and things somehow turn around.”
Another MP said: “I keep being told to wait until the local elections in May, but increasingly I wonder what the point of that is.”
“It’s quite obvious No 10 have totally lost touch with reality,” another MP said of the U-turn. “One might have thought they were learning on the job. But their decision-making and policy development strategy is going from really bad to alarmingly inadequate.”
The MP expressed their belief that the prime minister will “fall on his sword” after what is expected to be a disastrous result for Labour at the local elections.
“A leadership contest has been on the cards for some time now. It’s widely accepted within the [parliamentary Labour Party] now. However, it’s a political game of chess – who makes the next move.”
Meanwhile, there has been vocal criticism of the attempt to revive Sir Tony Blair’s failed mandatory ID policy.
Norwich South MP Clive Lewis said: “This is the sort of thing a government tries to do at the height of its powers, not when it is struggling in the polls. If people trusted it on foreign policy and the economy, then it might have been able to say, ‘We are doing this in your best interests.’
“But these were badly designed plans in the first place. An unnecessary fight. And of course, it was always going to trigger the libertarian right.”
It came after former Labour home secretary David Blunkett fiercely criticised the U-turn, arguing that the government had been forced to abandon the scheme because it had failed to convince people of why it was a good idea after announcing it last year.
In a damning indictment of the prime minister, Lord Blunkett told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Very sadly it is an indication of the failure to be able to annunciate why this policy mattered, to follow through with the detail of how it would work, and reinforce that by a plan of action. When you fail to do all those things, it’s not surprising in the end that the thing runs into the sand.”
Lord Blunkett, who first proposed ID cards in 2002 as a cabinet minister in Sir Tony’s administration, said he was “disappointed but not surprised”.
He said the original announcement was “not followed by a narrative, or supportive statements, or any kind of strategic plan which involves other ministers, and those who are committed to this, actually making the case”.
But Sir Tony’s think tank, which championed the introduction of digital ID, said the U-turn is “a change in approach, not a change in direction”.
Sir Tony himself tried to introduce mandatory ID cards during his time in Downing Street, but was forced to water down the policy to a voluntary scheme that was then scrapped by the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition.
Ryan Wain, executive director of policy and politics at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, said: “Removing mandatory digital ID from right-to-work checks is a change in approach, not a change in direction.
“Digital identity remains essential if we want public services that work in the way people now expect, with less friction, fewer forms, and services that actually join up. The real test isn’t whether people are forced to use it, but whether it’s good enough that they choose to.”
He added: “If digital ID makes everyday interactions with the state easier, faster and more personalised, people will choose it. Getting the design and rollout right is how you build public trust, and it’s the foundation for genuinely modernising public services.”
The mandatory ID card scheme was announced by the prime minister last September in a blaze of publicity, and was presented as a major weapon in the campaign to curb immigration. Sir Keir said at the time: “Let me spell that out: you will not be able to work in the UK if you do not have digital ID. It is as simple as that.”
But support for the policy collapsed in the wake of Sir Keir’s announcement, falling from 53 per cent in June to just 31 per cent in October.
Government sources say the scheme will now be optional when it is introduced in 2029, with workers given the option of using other means to verify their identity.
Defending the decision to water down plans for mandatory digital ID as he faced fire in the Commons over the U-turn, Sir Keir insisted there “will be checks” on the right to work in the UK, arguing: “They will be digital, and they will be mandatory.”
Source: UK Politics - www.independent.co.uk
