LABOUR has abandoned plans to make digital ID mandatory for workers, in the latest screeching U-turn by the government.

The controversial proof-of-identity scheme, aimed at stopping migrants working and widely criticised as state overreach, will now be entirely voluntary.  

However, workers will still be required to produce some form of identification to prove their right to employment.

The climbdown has been widely welcomed.  

Campaign group Liberty said: “We’ve maintained from the start that any digital ID system should be voluntary and focus on helping people access vital services, rather than digitally excluding them. 

“Successive governments have a bad track record of keeping our data safe and any digital ID system, mandatory or not, is at risk from cyber threats. 

“With the consultation upcoming, we’ll be monitoring to ensure the government creates a rights-respecting system with robust safeguards.”

Green Party leader Zack Polanski said: “The government have U-turned on ID cards. Good. Authoritarian plans to scrap jury trials need to go next.”

Reform boss Nigel Farage described the decision as “a victory for individual liberty against a ghastly, authoritarian government,” while Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said: “Good riddance. It was a terrible policy.”

Chancellor Rachel Reeves claimed there was nothing to see, saying the government was still insisting that “you will need mandatory digital ID to be able to work in the UK.”

She added: “The difference is whether that has to be one piece of ID, a digital ID card or whether it could be an e-visa or an e-passport, and we’re pretty relaxed about what form that takes.”

 “I don’t think most people mind whether it is one piece of digital ID or a form of digital ID that can be verified.”

Compulsory digital ID has long been high on the Labour right’s wish-list.

Tony Blair-era home secretary David Blunkett emerged to declare himself “disappointed” that ministers had backed down.

“The original announcement was not followed by a narrative or supportive statements or any kind of strategic plan, which made the case for the cards,” the embittered Lord Blunkett said.

“As a consequence, those who are opposed to the scheme for all kinds of nefarious and very different reasons — some of them inexplicable — were able to mobilise public opinion and to get the online opposition to it up and running.”

Yet another U-turn, however welcome, will not help the government’s reputation. Ms Badenoch told Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in the Commons that he was “a plastic bag in the wind.”