Let’s break down a few things, both about ID cards and Labour’s ill-advised tactics on “fighting Reform”. First off, I personally don’t think ID cards would work in UK, because we are objectively bad at things like this, but they work elsewhere so this isn’t about them per se.
Fairly obviously ID cards have zero bearing on small boat crossings. Yes, Reform, and others, like to make claims about people “destroying documents”, but this is pretty rare. When people are seen to destroy documents it tends, not always but on the whole, to signify they are being trafficked.
Traffickers make people destroy documents, or confiscate them, because it provides them with another element of control. For most people, destroying documents makes it harder for asylum claim to be processed, and as 90 per cent plus of people in small boats seek asylum, you see how counterproductive that is.
For the majority of the time when people don’t have documents the simple fact is they never did in the first place. When you are fleeing war and persecution it can be pretty hard to nip down the local passport office, for example, or even return home to collect documents. This is all an aside, though.
ID cards aren’t going to have any impact whatsoever on small boats. They just can’t. Something issued in the country people are seeking asylum in? Well, how does anyone think that makes the slightest difference in the methods people use to reach that country in the first place?
For immigration in general, ID cards would also have a sum total of sod all impact. To apply for a visa, or renew one, you have to accumulate substantial amounts of evidence; adding one more isn’t going to make a huge difference when you already have three boxes of proof of identity in the attic.
Ah, but what about “undocumented migrants”. Yes, absolutely, they may not have the proof of identity which you need for a visa, and there are lots of reasons for this. The key thing here is that they are…drum roll please…already undocumented, so ID cards, or the lack thereof, makes no difference.
Undocumented migrants cannot claim benefits, by the very nature of being undocumented. They cannot work, legally, by the very nature of being undocumented, and renting a place to live is incredibly difficult, by the nature of being undocumented. So lacking an ID card makes no difference.
Now, on the matter of using them to “fight Reform”. How exactly does anyone think this would work in practice? As explained, ID cards make no practical difference with regards to migration. Plenty of the countries which already have them have large anti-migrant parties. It doesn’t combat that.
What it does risk doing is: a) alienating Labour and progressive voters who see ID cards as bad; b) alienating Labour and progressive voters who recognise that immigration is not actually as much of an issue as Reform makes out; c) reinforcing Reform’s narrative, and providing them with free advertising.
As with what looks like quite a lot of Labour’s policies at the moment, increased immigration raids, increased deportations, sharing video clips of migrants being put in detention, making the puberty blocker ban permanent, playing to the “benefits scroungers” line etc, all serves to embolden Reform.
The problem here is that you can’t, especially while in power, go far enough to placate Reform. As with most populist parties, they rely on generating anger at an “other” to provide simple solutions for complex issues. When in power, people rapidly realise you aren’t fixing those complex issues.
We have a housing crisis, cost of living crisis, NHS crisis – in fact, quite a lot of crises. Reform uses the othering of marginalised groups to provide a simple solution, but there aren’t simple solutions to solving these issues, even though people want there to be.
So, what we have is a government which loses support of left and progressive voters, and then fails to gain support from the right, which has little cause to support them anyway when they have the original “simple solutions populists” to vote for, and none of the actual issues being solved.
Immigration is not a silver bullet to fixing every issue, but nor is it, despite some quite misleading rhetoric, the cause of them. With regard to the housing crisis, we have something like 200,000 vacant homes anyway, but the average age of British construction worker is about forty or fifty. We need migrants [to meet new build targets].
The NHS, housing etc require migration to be sustained at the least, let alone grow. I know the whole argument about “train up and recruit here”, but with more than 100,000 vacancies in social care alone, we should be able to agree that isn’t a realistic plan with an ageing population and declining birth rate.
Okay, I will grant you that not all migrants contribute financially to the country. Most do. Most of those who aren’t contributing in a specifically noticeably financial manner are usually helping contribute in other ways: not all contributions [to society] can be measured by payment of taxes.
Are there some who don’t work? Yes, just as with Brits. Some can’t, some don’t want to. Migrants are…another drum roll please…human beings. That means huge variance. Note though, that it is less likely for a migrant not to be contributing due to the thousands of pounds they have to stump up.
You see, migrants on visa routes (of which there are many different forms and they can exceed ten years [to fulfil the conditions]) have to pay tens of thousands of pounds routinely on those routes, along with the Immigration Health Surcharge, which is a major funding pot for the NHS.
When you enact policies to “reduce immigration”, you inevitably hurt everyone, therefore, because you need migrants to help keep infrastructure running, and growing – the humanity issue obviously not being a big winning argument with either Reform or Labour.
Reducing immigration, for starters, means fewer new homes being built, fewer people working in health and social care, less funding for NHS, higher prices in shops. Think where your food comes from, for a second. So, the issues which make people support Reform’s “simple solutions” get worse.
It is an absolute lose/lose strategy. I would argue that, considering Labour’s whacking great majority and with four and a half years left in office for this run, they have the ability to actually put forward positive policies which show the benefits of migration, and help solve genuine issues.
Failing that, though, they need to stop playing into Reform’s hands every single second. Combat Reform’s narrative, rather than embrace it. At the very least, stop pushing policies aimed at targeting marginalised groups, and stop raising the salience of Reform’s arguments.
