Digital ID would help secure borders and cut benefit fraud

Britain is trying to manage 21st-century challenges with 20th-century tools. If we’re serious about controlling borders, cutting benefit fraud and fixing broken public services, then we need a modern digital identity system fast.

- RYAN WAIN

The 40 Labour MPs who wrote an open letter to the prime minister calling for its implementation get it. Their intervention comes just months after the shadow home secretary Chris Philp became the first frontline Conservative politician to back this idea. It is no longer an issue of left versus right, but one of right versus wrong.

That a digital ID is central to reimagining a state desperately in need of it is news to no one, but there are serious reasons why this idea’s time has come. Last year, 1.2 million people came to Britain – and those are just the ones we could count. Whatever your view on how many migrants the UK should accept, one thing is clear: we need control. Digital ID is part of the solution.