I went a little creative with this one. Or is it “rogue”?

START OF MY MESSAGE TO KEIR STARMER

Hi there,

I took part in an online meeting with you and one interviewer once, before you became PM. It was interesting… I was elated when Labour won because it then seemed that at least the British were coming to their senses even if people in many other countries have not yet. I’m so disappointed and also really concerned that you’re making the British feel betrayed because you started emulating the Tories from day 1. That is not what the public had voted for.

And now, instead of looking after the country, you may be focusing too much on doing what Farage et al want.

That said, fair is fair, you do have a knack for handling Donald Trump.

That’s not, however, how British people want and deserve to be treated. They need honesty and transparency and someone who genuinely cares. Some Conservatives seem to care a lot more about the British people than you do. That’s not a good look.

Where are your own LABOUR views? Have you shred them while nobody was watching?

I am actually writing to you about ID, however.
(links for readers: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g54g6vgpdo and https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-digital-id-scheme-to-be-rolled-out-across-uk and https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/oct/01/keir-starmer-labour-collapse-public-support-digital-id-cards)

As various forms of digital-only checks are already attached to migrant status and right-to-work checks, it seems to me that this is just another way for the government to spend a lot of money.

This tactic is typical for the Conservatives, not for Labour. The Conservatives spouted a lot of lies about foreign people living in the UK not needing to pay NIC and so on; they were able to because nobody stood up and said “wait a minute, that’s nonsense”.

I don’t think that mandatory DIGITAL ID would help Brits either as FAR too many are living in poverty or in deep poverty. They might not have the required equipment and internet access. Mandatory physical ID with a chip carrying fingerprints is a different matter.

I understand that your plans also undermine certain other groups’ rights; as you are a human rights lawyer, you’re probably well aware of that and don’t need me to spell it out.

In addition, the speed at which you want to introduce this means that you are asking for trouble. You’d risk repeating what MS Windows used to be infamous for. Haste makes waste.

I don’t know if your plans would create something like the Dutch DigiD, but that introduction was riddled with problems. Many people couldn’t get it to work no matter what they tried (even still just a few years ago) and the majority of phones were not suitable for some weird reason.

As it happens, the phone I got for my EUSS application (with NFC so that it could read the chip in my passport) was also the only one on which the Dutch DigiD app functioned. None of my other phones could get it to work; I have no idea why not.

There also was an issue with Dutch people abroad not being able to acquire DigiD. I happened to be able to stop by at Schiphol Airport at the right time so I was lucky enough to be able to go to some desk there and get it sorted.

You will have similar issues for Brits abroad. Those living in places like Amsterdam and Berlin can hop over, just like I hopped over to Amsterdam. It is a different story for those in Australia, Canada or other more distant places.

As another example, the new GOV.UK ID that you’ve recently introduced for us foreigners will require the purchase of yet another new phone because it won’t accept anything under Android 11 at the moment. (Ehm… wait a minute, so you already have that too!)

What ARE you DOING, Keir? Where is your good common sense?

Please reconsider. Thanks.

Angelina

END OF MY MESSAGE TO KEIR STARMER

PS
After reading the gov.uk information about this new ID, I freaked. Drop your phone and you no longer can prove who you are! All of my phones malfunction often. All of my equipment suffers from persistent hacking interference. Some apps malfunction often. Some apps I can’t even get on some phones because the app thinks I am in the wrong country even when I am not, on the basis of some coding in the phone.

This new ID scheme sounds like a bonkers waste of money because with your government gateway ID you can also already access more and more services. I had not even mentioned that in the message that I sent.

Argh. What a load of crock. (There is no paperwork related to EUSS, for example. It’s been 100% digital from the start.) (EUSS is the EU settlement scheme, which kicked in after Brexit.)

Okay, so here is the crux (possibly). Who’d be getting the contracts?