Accountability, Not Technocracy.
There are simpler solutions to immigration than a digital ID.
Otium Den recap:
Does anyone care about civil liberties?
I received a few unhappy responses on X for suggesting the “freeborn Englishman” was a national myth. I referenced a 2021 YouGov survey showing 58% of the UK public then supported vaccine passports. Replies attributed this to the government’s “project fear” campaign during Covid. And yes, the authorities bear responsibility for “don’t kill granny” messaging that hyped up pandemic fears.
But few modern Prime Ministers have come up with a policy as popular as locking people in their own homes.
Widespread compliance surprised government behavioural scientists who had originally warned Britons would defy even modest restrictions.
Which is why I think civil liberties campaigners overestimate the strength of opposition to Keir Starmer’s digital ID plans. Current polls suggest a slim majority are against the scheme. But how many of those would put that principle above their jobs? Just as, pre-Covid, who would have agreed to societal shutdown for a disease former Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty described as mild or moderate for the vast majority?
Controlling immigration without surveillance
All the more reason, you may say, to vociferously oppose this now. Once imposed, it will become grudgingly accepted and the UK public like the metaphorical boiling frog. One day verifying an ID with employers, banned from travelling the next for an offensive social media post. But those surveillance state fears sit awkwardly with the desire to control immigration. Stronger border policy alone only deals with refugees, who made up around 13% of immigrants in 2024. To address the status of the remaining 87%, the British state needs a much clearer idea of who is in the country and what they are doing.
Director of Big Brother Watch and civil liberties campaigner Silkie Carlo described this as a non-partisan issue on a recent episode of Triggernometry. Opposition to digital ID unites Jeremy Corbyn and Nigel Farage. But such a stance is far more coherent for Corbyn-esque figures believing no human is illegal. If you’re not that into national sovereignty anyway, then what right does the state have to check on its inhabitants?
So, the Conservatives’ fence-sitting is prudent, with Kemi Badenoch only saying there are “arguments for and against.” Ultimately, they should oppose it but need to carefully consider why. Civil liberties don’t carry as much traction as we might wish. And the Conservatives will carry the can for the Boriswave into the next election. Labour can easily finger them as soft if it appears they won’t give the state extra powers to tackle immigration.
It may yet be a false dawn but Badenoch’s recent pledge to scrap stamp duty has breathed a bit of life back into the party. It represents traditional conservative thinking, that things are sometimes better if the government gets out of the way. It’s here that the UK can learn from Singapore on immigration. Not the obvious example of Singapore’s own slick digital ID but how it actually controls the issue through making employers accountable.
Singapore’s digital ID & work passes
This digital ID, Singpass, personifies the country’s competent technocracy. Logging into the iPhone app with FaceID, it shows my address, race, nationality, taxes, local driving licence, dependents and employment. It can occasionally feel dystopian, like when it pinged me my daughters’ birth certificates just minutes after they left the womb. But it’s not a papers please society. I felt that far more intensely living in Hong Kong, where digital infrastructure was chaotic, but police could and would demand to see your passport.
In practicality, the biggest frustration of Singpass is how many physical checks are still required for daily administration. You need a lot of paper copies to open a bank account or rent a flat. It’s not a time-saving panacea. And when it comes to immigration, it is the responsibility placed upon employers, rather than this ID, that keeps such a tight lid on things.
Where UK entities perform right to work checks with varying degrees of scrutiny, Singapore’s work passes are tied to an employer. All foreigners need a sponsor to apply to the government on their behalf. The sponsoring company receives approval, if granted, and the employee’s stay in Singapore is tied to that specific pass. These passes generally need to be renewed every two years. If you’re fired or quit, the pass is cancelled and you have thirty days to leave the country.
Digital ID starts with the logic that it is the state’s responsibility to step in and do more. It offers a convoluted and expensive solution to illegal immigration when there are far easier things to be done first. By making all right-to-work employer sponsored, you change the incentives. Singapore is explicit that hiring should favour Singaporeans. The application system therefore adds friction in opting for foreign workers instead. It also changes the equation for illegal workers.
The UK doesn’t know how many visa overstayers there are. But estimates place this between 50 to 80% of the illegal workforce. If employers have to actively apply for visas, overstayers will get flagged. Like in Singapore, applicants would need to submit far more than just a National Insurance Number so that their status in the country can be properly verified. This will also stem the tide of those still arriving, knowing simple forgeries won’t cut it anymore.
Get the simple things right
As an island, the UK does not face a huge problem with clandestine arrivals. It is not the US where immigrants can sneak across the border and are entirely unrecorded as ever having arrived. The UK’s larger issue is instead figuring out who is here now. Rather than carrying out a great new digital census to solve this, the UK should distribute responsibility.
It’s easy to look at Singapore and its digital ID as a paradigm. But embedding this infrastructure for a population of six million is far easier than 70 million. More importantly, it’s not what drives Singapore’s approach to immigration. Like crime, where it prosecutes even minor dismeanours, immigration is managed through zero tolerance. Hiring foreigners is hard and companies breaking the rules are punished harshly.
Rather than reverting to libertarian principles that don’t hold much sway, Conservatives should prioritise simplification in the same way it has with stamp duty. Make employers screen employees properly. Recent Labour and Conservative policies have made things harder for businesses with corporation tax and national insurance increases. Yet the UK is remarkably tolerant of hiring illegal labour. While Reform offers dramatic forced deportations and Labour promises expensive new infrastructure, the Conservatives should focus on quick wins that work. Accountability, not technocracy.