Keir Starmer is facing the wrath of Labour MPs today after executing his latest shambolic U-turn.

The PM has humiliatingly dropped his flagship plans to make digital ID cards mandatory for right to work checks.

Sir Keir had spent months talking up the importance of the move to tackle illegal immigration – but alarm had been growing that it was deeply unpopular.

Backbenchers openly ridiculed the climbdown, which will fuel doubts about Sir Keir’s future. The government has now carried out 13 significant U-turns on policies in just 18 months, despite Sir Keir having one of the biggest Commons majorities in history.

The decision tees up another awkward PMQs session for Sir Keir in the Commons later. 

He has been turning to Attorney General Lord Hermer – a fellow human rights lawyer – to make the case for his leadership.   

Digital IDs will now be entirely optional when they are introduced in 2029 – with workers allowed to use other documents to verify their identity digitally.

All other aspects of the scheme were set to be voluntary – meaning Britons will not have to adopt an official digital ID at all when they are introduced.

The volte face is the second of the 2026, just 14 days into January, after Rachel Reeves signalled concessions on business rates for pubs 

The Conservatives said Labour’s ‘only consistent policy is retreat’ while the Lib Dems joked that Downing Street was ‘bulk ordering motion sickness tablets’ to cope with so many changes of direction.

Announcing the plan on the eve of last year’s Labour Party conference, Sir Keir said people ‘will not be able to work in the United Kingdom’ if they did not have digital ID as part of a bid to crack down on illegal immigration.

But support for digital ID collapsed in the wake of his announcement, falling from 53 per cent in June to just 31 per cent in October. 

Labour MP Karl Turner, who has been leading a revolt against the government’s curbs to jury trials, said a return on that issue was now ‘inevitable’.

‘Labour MPs must think very carefully before defending policy decisions publicly. This stuff leaves us looking really stupid,’ he said. 

Former Home Secretary Lord Blunkett swiped that ministers had failed to ‘enunciate why this policy mattered’. 

‘I’m disappointed but I’m not surprised, because the original announcement was not followed by a narrative or supportive statements or any kind of strategic plan which involved other ministers or those who are committed to this actually making the case,’ he told the BBC.

Ministers tried to argue that details of the digital ID scheme were always intended to be set out after a consultation.

Touring broadcast studios this morning, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told Times Radio: ‘We will still have digital ID. We will still have mandatory digital right-to-work checks. The form of digital ID … the nature of the material that is presented could be either the digital ID on somebody’s phone … or it could be another form of digital documentation which contains proof of your right to work.’

Pressed if digital ID would be compulsory, Ms Alexander said: ‘We are committed to having mandatory digital right-to-work checks.’

She added: ‘You say this is some sort of massive U-turn – we said we would have digital checks on people for right to work, that is what we are continuing to do.’

A government spokesman said: ‘We are committed to mandatory digital right to work checks.

‘Currently right-to-work checks include a hodgepodge of paper-based systems with no record of checks ever taking place. This is open to fraud and abuse.

‘We have always been clear that details on the digital ID scheme will be set out following a full public consultation, which will launch shortly.’

The change leaves open the possibility that digital right-to-work checks could involve other forms of ID, while the digital ID programme would be entirely voluntary.

Conservative Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake said: ‘Labour’s only consistent policy is retreat and it’s the public that are paying the price for a government defined by reversal.

‘Labour entered office without a plan and now lacks the backbone to stand by their own decisions – lurching from one U-turn to the next as the consequences of their choices become clear.

‘The country is living with the fallout of that weakness, and many voters will be wishing they could make a U-turn of their own on electing this failing Labour Government.’