Every worker in the U.K. will be required to have a digital ID card, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced Friday.
The goal is to crack down on illegal migration, he said. Workers will need to produce the card when seeking employment, with the law taking effect by the end of the decade.
“You will not be able to work in the United Kingdom if you do not have digital ID,” Starmer said. “It’s as simple as that.”
Starmer admitted in an editorial in The Daily Telegraph that it has become too easy for people to live and work in the U.K. illegally.
“We’ve been squeamish about saying things that are clearly true,” Starmer wrote below the headline “Labour got it wrong on migration.”
More than 50,000 migrants have arrived in Britain since Starmer took office in July 2024, The Washington Post reported.
Nigel Farage, the leader of Britain’s Reform Party, has made deporting illegals a central plank of his party’s platform as Britons protest the government keeping asylum seekers in hotels while they wait for their applications to be processed, the Post reported.
“There is no silver bullet, but we must enforce every possible measure to deter illegal migrants from entering British waters,” Starmer wrote. “This Government will make a new, free of charge Digital ID that will be mandatory for the right to work by the end of this Parliament.”
Kemi Badenoch, leader of the Conservative Party, said her party opposes Starmer’s plan.
“We will not support any system that is mandatory for British people or excludes those of us who choose not to use it from any of the rights of our citizens,” Badenoch said.
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