The future British Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, will abandon the national digital citizen card project, which had been announced in September by his predecessor, today indicated a spokesman.
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Keir Starmer, who leaves his duties on Monday, had announced this project to combat illegal immigration.
The measure had generated a strong concern in a country that had long been averse to identity controls and where there is no identity card, powered by a continuous flow of misinformation from the far right.
” All the time and all the resources that were going to be dedicated to this digital citizen card project will instead be affected where they are most needed, namely to help meet the cost of living.”, declared the spokesman.
Andy Burnham, also a member of the Labour Party, takes office in a context of prolonged cost-of-life crisis, which has contributed to making Keir Starmer one of the most unpopular prime ministers in recent decades.
Its priority will be to relaunch the economy and improve the standard of living of the British, hit by rising energy and food prices since the beginning of the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Despite the abandonment of the digital citizen card project, your government will continue to combat illegal work, building on the progress achieved by Keir Starmer, adds in a press release.
The Starmer project consisted of introducing, by 2029, a national digital card. This would not be compulsory, but necessary to prove the right to work.
Figures from the far right, which opposed the project as most opposition parties, presented it as a new means for the government to control the lives of citizens.
Subsequently, the Government had withdrawn its decision to make it compulsory to work.
The cost of this programme had been estimated at GBP 1.8 billion (over EUR 2.1 billion) over three years.