Government drops plans for mandatory digital ID to work in UK

“What I am concerned about is we get better at explaining our policies, we get better at showing the relevance of it,” he told BBC 2’s Politics Live.

The reversal is in the latest in a series of U-turns in recent weeks, including on inheritance tax for farmland and business rates for pubs.

Speaking at Prime Minster’s Questions, the Tory leader welcomed the government’s climbdown, branding the initial digital ID plan a “rubbish policy”.

But she said the change of approach showed Sir Keir was “blowing around like a plastic bag in the wind”, predicting that Labour would next U-turn on its controversial plans to scale back jury trials.

The prime minister hit back by pointing to policy reversals and ministerial churn under the previous government, accusing the Conservatives of having “crashed the economy” during their time in office.

“I’m determined to make it harder for people to work illegally in this country and that’s why there will be checks, they will be digital, and they will be mandatory,” he added.

When the government first announced the policy plan, it argued that mandatory digital ID for workers would make it easier to clamp down on immigrants working illegally.

The scheme, it is understood, will now deal less narrowly with immigration and the government will instead place more emphasis on the argument that digital ID can be a useful tool for the public when accessing public services.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the government was still “absolutely committed” to mandatory digital right to work checks, including through biometric passports, and said digitising the system would help crack down on illegal working.

“The digital ID could be one way in which you prove your eligibility to work through a digital right to work check,” she said.

“At the moment we’ve got a paper-based system – there’s no proper records kept.

“It makes it very difficult then to target enforcement action sensibly against businesses that are employing illegal workers.”

Former home secretary Lord David Blunkett, who supported ID cards when he was in government, told the same programme the government had not explained why the policy mattered or how it would work, so it was “not surprising” to see another U-turn.

“The original statement was not followed by a narrative or supportive statements or any kind of strategic plan which involved other ministers and those who are committed to this actually making the case,” he said.

“As a consequence, those who are opposed to the scheme, for all kinds of nefarious and very different reasons, some of them inexplicable, were able to mobilise public opinion and to get the online opposition to it up and running.”

Polling showed that public support for digital ID collapsed after Sir Keir’s announcement, falling from just over half the population being supportive in June to less than a third of the population just after his speech.

Nearly three million people have signed a parliamentary petition opposing the introduction of digital IDs.

There has also been nervousness among some Labour MPs over the compulsory aspect of the original proposal.

Whatever they think of the change to this specific policy, Labour MPs are growing increasingly frustrated with the government’s U-turns.

Some had already been wary of defending controversial government policies to their constituents because they feared that the policy would inevitably be reversed.

One furious Labour MP told the BBC last night that the latest U-turn was “an absolute car crash”, adding: “The boys at No 10 jumped into it with no thought, marched the PLP up the hill only to bottle it, take all the pain and no credit.”