East Thanet MP Polly Billington is among 40 Labour MPs who have signed a letter calling for the government to introduce digital ID cards to tackle ‘illegal migration’.
The letter, which was sent to the Home Office, the Cabinet Office, and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, says the introduction of ID cards would support the government to crackdown on ‘off-the books’ employment which is a major draw for people entering the country through irregular routes.
They say digital ID would help counter the problems as well as helping to tackle modern slavery and drive up wages and employment rights for those working legally.
The letter also says the other benefits of digital ID cards would include cutting government waste and bureaucracy and improving citizens’ ability to do everything from paying taxes to renewing passports and booking NHS appointments.
Polly said:“Reform and the Conservatives love to talk tough on tackling illegal migration but fall oddly silent when it comes to offering genuine solutions. From championing the failed Rwanda scheme to voting against Labour’s crackdown on criminal smuggling gangs, they carp from the sidelines while we get on with the tough job of ending the crisis in the Channel.
“Digital ID cards are completely normal in most countries and go a long way to prevent migrants without legal status from accessing public services or working in the illicit economy, where they undercut the wages of legal workers.
“ That’s why I’m supporting this call from Labour MPs for the government to make this pragmatic change, so that we can secure our borders and disincentivise people from making these dangerous journeys across the channel.”
In 2006, the Labour government wanted to introduce photo ID cards for every citizen in the UK, but the scheme was scrapped by the Conservative- Lib Dem Coalition in 2010.
Last year eVisas were introduced for people granted permission to stay in the UK for more than 6 months or with indefinite leave to remain (also known as settlement) to prove their identity and status in the UK.
So dear Miss Rt. Hon. Billington. How, precisely, will the creation of any form of identification documents digital or otherwise prevent those not entitled to physically enter the U.K. in accordance with the Immigration and Nationality Act physically enterting This Sceptred Isle?
The truth is that it neither could nor would. It would also criminalise those who decline to obtain one. It will also, no doubt, be a revenue raiser for Treasury. After all, passports aren’t cheap. Are they?
We already have National Insurance Numbers. Everyone is accorded one when their birth certificate enters the national records system. Why isn’t the N.I. card sufficient? Why does it have to be digital?
There is more to this than the duplicitous Miss Billington lets on. Just as there was when Blair first proposed it and it was correctly shunned. Miss Billington does not represent the view of the majority of Britons.
An ID card won’t stop people coming ashore in little boats. But, ad the piece says, it will make getting illegal jobs more difficult. And that’s one of the attractions for illegal immigrants.
An ID card is not mandatory in the UK. Having some sort of an ID is very helpful from time to time.
Ms Billington represents the views of some people in Thanet.
If you cannot provide evidence of a legitimate NI Number you are issued with & every migrant has to apply for to work legally, then you are illegal.
The only people this appeals to are Labour drone hypocrites who lambasted the Tories for this stuff, yet excuse Labour doing the same & even worse-those who like our MP are Gauche caviar.
Great. I presume it will be free, and not have to be renewed. Or is this going to cost people, and be yet another tax the Labour party are going to inflict on the British public. Their silence on this is defining. Polly, over to you for your comments, if you dare.
For years the Labour party has steadfastly refused any discussion on id cards, now in power they want them,couldn’t make it up
Personally i have always thought the locals know best. People who were born, brought up and still a local in god’s own Thanet. Would make best mp. If i am wrong, 1 apology
! doomed
It isn’t like she any interest in representing the area, why she has voted/acted against those that elected her at every turn in a poverty stricken area-just lining her pockets like all the other lobbysist drop-ins that now populate the party.
well said
“the locals know best?” You could accuse Roger Gale of being local (if he was). Living miles from ‘Thanet reality’ of migrants, unemployment, filthy streets, crime, vandalism and graffiti, drug dens and County lines, A&E waiting room horrors, and watching our “God’s own Thanet” become an over-populated toilet. Gales is, and has been, completely useless. Mocked in the national press, he (along with Metro-elite Billington, are the epitome of “something rotten in the state of Thanet”
Got time to push for this but not to support the 25% of the isle with some form of disability.
Labour are handing the next election to the fascists in Reform.
Labour are father right to UK citizens than Conservative & Reform. Also appears to be full of diddlers-no dubt another reason, aside from politicial ones that why they don’t want proper investigations done into the extent of the grooming/rape gangs.
25% of the isle with some form of disability??? W.T.F. Well, when you look at the ‘Mobility’ scam are you surprised? Brand new SUV for a few quid a week… I’m in – I’m anxious, I want…
Harry you live in the past,don’t you remember that Blair wanted to have an ID card, and who was it who said it was against our human rights,yes the same Tory party that wants to come out of the ECHR.
Of course,all those who think 15 minute urban areas are a way of social control will be against having an ID card digital or otherwise.
1. Greedy Blair owns shares in the company that would be making them.
2. Why do we need an ID card when we already have multiple forms of identification & everybody has theor own designated NI number to prove who we are? As does every migrant who wants to work legally in the UK. The simple answer is if you cannot provide that number you are an illegal.
3. Of course it also allows Liebour to like the Tories keep flooding the country with cheaper labour & punishing UK citizens, while gaslighting us about how tough they are on migration & not bothering to actually stop the problem at source. It is just another money making scam & means more surveilance on UK citizens-it will of course eentually be mandatory to produce it wherever you go-even to buy food.
NI numbers are issued like confetti as it enables tax to be collected , illegal workers like to get one as it starts to create a veneer of legality.
an id card , that will put a stop to it . be honest we cannot even get rid of murderers , terrorists , and rapists , i sometimes wonder if they even want to ? , its to far gone now , they in thier own words are here to stay , and ultimately take over.
She is worse than i thought.
It’ll be quite interesting if this does come about, what happens when there are 2 million people then left with theoretically no access to services and unable to work? We won’t deport them , so ther’d have to be an amnesty and all those people given the right to remain. The burden then on the welfare state, health , housing and education would be monumental.
HMRC could easily clamp down illegal businesses , but there’s no appetite to do so. They’d rather collect the taxes from the money laundering businesses and turn a blind eye to the hand car washes that must patently exceed the vat threshold ( solely in terms of the amount of wages paid out to all the workers at minimum wage).
Actually knowing how many are really in the country would soon show why services are so stretched, they’re trying to cope with way more people than they’re funded for.
Remember the claims as to how many would apply for settled status when we left the eu and the feigned surprise when nigh on 6 million applied? And that was for a group of people who had no need to hide their presence.
I’d back id cards, that way we’d at least know for sure where we stand.
They don’t deport many anyway-they were out there last week boasting they deported 24,000 since taking office-but that was a lie, forced deportations was less than 6,400 & most of the others people left of their own accord, with no pressure from the government at all & the government not even knowing they were no longer here until they had gone.
Of course Starmer & his cronies also forgot to mention how many have arrived since he took office-at the end of last year over 23 thousand had arrived since July-now it is likely around 40 thousand.
It’s not those arriving that will be the problem it’d be the 2 plus million who are already here with no right to be ( illegal entrants, visa overstays and the offspring of those categories) many of whom will have been here years.
Ah the old Blair nonsense-so everybody can be followed & monitored 24/7, nice to know our ‘socilaist’ MP who votes to freeze the elderly & keep children in poverty, while picking up ‘freebies’ also backs mass surveilance on citizens, as well as not having proper investigations into grooming/rape gangs.
Of course what would stop migration is proper protection of the border-something her party has zero interest in doing, as like the Tories before them, they have no wish to stop mass migration here-just to strip as many rights away from UK citizens as possible.
The answer to identification is of course quite simple-every UK citizen is given a National Insurance number at 16. Every migrant wanting to work has to apply for one. If they cannot provide evidence of that number then they are illegal. Why the hell should any of us be forced to have these things, when the government already have all these details?
Why are all of the other forms of ID suddenly useless according to Labour? Birth Certificates, NI Numbers, Passports, Driving Licences, post being sent by councils/the government to those people etc?
Why not have NI numbers tattooed on the forarm of everyone on their 16th birthday, like a bar code, that should do it, the police would only need a suoermarket checkout scanner to see if someone is legally domiciled here!
Poly Billington & Labour-Your Papers Please!
They say digital ID would help counter the problems as well as helping to tackle modern slavery and drive up wages and employment rights for those working legally.
The letter also says the other benefits of digital ID cards would include cutting government waste and bureaucracy and improving citizens’ ability to do everything from paying taxes to renewing passports and booking NHS appointments.
What a laugh-as said anybody without a NI number working is not here legally, so why do the government need every UK citizen to have an ID card, when everybody gets an NI number at 16 & every migrant wanting to work has to apply for one? I am old enough to still have my NI ID card-before they stopped issuing them & just provided a number! Isn’t that an identity card, printed by the government?
Drive up wages & employment rights how exactly? Don’t the government set a NMW already thanks to Blair’s government? Aren’t employment rights enshirned in law & tribunals exist to weight up the claims & reach a decision?
Cutting government waste & bureaucracy-ha, like this government wasting £1,200 pounds of taxpayer money on buying two ministerial folders, when they could have bought two perfectly good folders to do the job from the House Of Commons shop for 30 quid each? The excuse was like the ‘freebie’ expensive clothing (Rayner’s donor(s) should get a refund for those abominations she wears) about image-seems this government of on the take posers are all sizzle & no steak.
Improving citizens ability to pay their taxes-er don’t they do that every year by submitting a tax return, or having it deducted at source? The government/Taxman doesn’t let you escape paying tax ever, unless you are a millionaire/billionaire friend of the prime minister of course-so more nonsense.
Renewing passports-strange, as people seemed to have managed to take the required ID to do so along to the office very well for decades.
Booking NHS appointments-what appointments? We can’t get them, no doubt Polly has private healthcare & has never had to try getting one the last 5 years since Covid became an excuse for doctors to ignore everybody. Maybe your party could clear the 7 odd million backlog? Of course not. Just pretend that waving one of Bliars cards he will be making money off of around will make any difference.
Those entering our lovely country via irregular routes. They end up at a reception center. Biometrics are recorded. Facial photos, fingerprints, name they give and dob they give are recorded. No need for id cards,Its already recorded its on the BF or partners database. Maybe mp needs to visit the reception center (its local) and other centers.
entering our lovely country via irregular routes??? What a disgraceful EUphemism! Those “criminals are illegally invading our country. They come here to steal (Take without consent) everything – accomodation, medicine, schooling welfare, and need to be called out for exactly what they are.
Right Alex, here are The Home Office top ten nationalities of people entering the UK irregularily: Afghanistan. Iran. Syria. Eritrea. Vietnam. Sudan. Iraq. Turkey. Yemen. Just how eould anyone from these countries, with the exception of Turkey, enter the UK any other way?
None of which are former U.K. colonies or members of the Commonwealth. So. Why Britain? There is no historic or cultural reason why any of them should head here via multiple safe nations to claim asylum if their intention is not to milk and over lenient Welfare State, commit crime or, to undertake dawah/jihad.
There should be no place physically, financially or emotionally for them here. They should be gone. With or without identity cards.
Because none of them speak French, German, Dutch, Norwegion, Italian, Spanish, although these countries do take asylum seekers. But its more likely they will be able to speak some English, and have relatives, or friends in the UK, so here is the best choice! There wasn’t a problem when we were a member of the EU, because asylum seekers were accepted in the first safe EU country they arrived in. So the best answer would be to rejoin the EU, problem solved!
Pointless Polly she’s such an embarrassment, it’s embarrassing calling her our MP.
ID cards for those seeking work are only as effective as the employers actually asking to see them and doing the checks. So many employers take illegals on in low pay jobs without checking anything so how is this going to solve anything ?
Polly B is typical of this kind of politician. Unpicking the ID issue what is it about really. The reason wages drop is all about unscrupulous bosses who exploit the fact that they can take on a person and pay them liw because, that person, has no legal recourse or knowledge about their employment rights.
The same goes for landlords who exploit people in this position.
Making ID digital is probably a way Labour hope to sell the data on.
What really gets me is the media and parliamentary time used on this claptrap. There are so many ways Labour could be helping people but instead they are buying in to divisive politics “blame the illegals”, blame the non-white people while it’s the super rich people and companies that have caused so much death, ill-health and distress to us.
I have changed my mind on ID Cards, which considereing the amount of terrorist/lunatic attacks taking place, could help as a deterrant! In the early 70’s I was black listed due to my trade union activities, so changed my name, and got into work again! Later I changed my name back, when I got married! MY German wife always carried her ID card with her, as do most Europeans, and one day when we were on holiday in Southern Germany we decided to cross into Switzeland for the day. When we appeared at the border the Swiss guards asked to see our Passports, which being English I didn’t have with me! But my wife had her German ID Card, which was good enough to get her into Switzeland, because it still had her old German Address on it. She said to the guards I had fogotten my ID Card, and they let us in for ONE Day!
This was a nice little earner! The Swiss would issue a one day visa, for I belive 10 D. Marks in those days, but if anyone stayed over the day, it made them an illegal migrant, and subject to arrest! It was called “Internal Security”, and meant anyone apprehended by the police for what ever reason had to produce their ID Card, if not they could be arrested! That was nearly 40 years, so if it worked then, I don’t see why it can’t work now!
Labour is now very much in favour of making 1984 a reality.
There is a hidden agenda with regards to ID Cards which they won’t tell you about.Wake up People.Folk that are born and bred in this country have a National insurance number which is good enough.We need the borders stopped so they can’t come in unless they go through the right channels.
I think it’s a great idea. When can I get one?
Great idea, I D cards should be shown in pubs, clubs, off licenses . They could be used for many purposes all to the good , especially in matters of anti social behavior.
A few years ago I was watching a documentary on TV about the German NAZI pesecution of people of the Jewish faith. It showed an ID Card, and on it was a place to put the persons Religion! In this example it said Jew, so even the NAZI’s claimed people of the Jewish faith, were NOT a race apart from the rest of Germans. The NAZI ID Card showed a persons Religion, not their race! So the NAZI’s persecuted people because of their religion!
Load of waffle Dumpton, ID cards will show who you are not what you are and if you are a legal citizen. Other countries have them no problem.
“Because none of them speak French, German, Dutch, Norwegion, Italian, Spanish, although these countries do take asylum seekers. But its more likely they will be able to speak some English, and have relatives, or friends in the UK, so here is the best choice! There wasn’t a problem when we were a member of the EU, because asylum seekers were accepted in the first safe EU country they arrived in. So the best answer would be to rejoin the EU, problem solved!”
As I already said, none of these countries are former British colonies. The second language they learned in school would not have been English. Syria and Vietnam are both former French colonies.
As for having relatives here… That will only be for the reasons I have also already stated. Continuing to be in error because we have been so for decades does not mean that we should not change for the better. Just as we should have stopped giving away Britain’s net wealth to the E.U. Commission for half a century.