POLITICIANS IN NORTHERN IRELAND have slammed the UK government’s proposed new digital ID cards aimed at reducing unauthorised migration.

The so-called ‘Brit Cards’ will allow the verification of a citizen’s right to work in the UK.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced the plan to bring in the cards today and his office has since released the details. 

“There will be no requirement for individuals to carry their ID or be asked to produce it,” Downing Street said.

“But digital ID will be mandatory as a means of proving your Right to Work. It is expected the cards will be subject to consultation and require legislation.”

There has been plenty of public pushback against the introduction of the scheme, especially in Northern Ireland.

First Minister Michelle O’Neill has led criticism of the proposal in the north, calling it “ludicrous and ill-thought out”. 

“This proposal is an attack on the Good Friday Agreement and on the rights of Irish citizens in the North of Ireland,” the Sinn Féin vice-president said. 

Many members of the public are not keen on the idea either. 

More than 900,000 people have signed a petition to the UK Parliament calling for the scheme to be scrapped. Petitions that reach 100,000 signatures must be debated in parliament but they often have little to no impact on government policy. 

The British Prime Minister’s proposal for a mandatory digital ID card is ludicrous and ill-thought out.

This proposal is an attack on the Good Friday Agreement and on the rights of Irish citizens in the North of Ireland.

— Michelle O’Neill (@moneillsf) September 25, 2025

Sinn Féin’s Chris Hazzard also criticised the move on social media, saying that the UK government would issue a decree that people in the north “must carry a digital ‘BritCard’ to prove that we ‘have the right to be here’”. 

“I won’t be doing that. I’m sure I won’t be the only one,” the South Down MP wrote. 

SDLP Leader Claire Hanna MP has called for Northern Ireland to be exempt from the scheme. She warned that it would be unworkable in Northern Ireland and risks disrupting cross-border ties.

Hanna also cautioned that the scheme does not reflect the reality of people’s rights of identity and citizenship here.

Alliance MP Sorcha Eastwood said she would not be supporting the move either, “not because it’s called the Brit Card. But because it’s a terrible idea for many reasons.”

In Britain, the Tories and Reform have described the plans as a “cynical ploy” designed to “fool” voters and a “gimmick”. 

The Liberal Democrats also said they would not support mandatory digital ID where people are “forced to turn over their private data just to go about their daily lives”.

Lib Dem leader Ed Davy said: “Keir Starmer seems determined to lead a government of gimmicks.”

Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney has also come out against the scheme. 

The UK has only previously had mandatory ID cards during wartime. The last ID scheme was scrapped in 1952.

John Major’s government ran a consultation on reintroducing them in the 1995, but they were never brought in.

His successor, Tony Blair, then considered a voluntary ID card, but it was not fully rolled out amid objections from the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives.

He has since repeated his call for their introduction after leaving office.

Earlier this month, Starmer said an ID card system could play an “important part” in stopping people from crossing the English Channel in small boats, amid continued political discourse around the topic of migration in Britain. 

He said things had “moved on” since the debate over ID cards during the last Labour government in the 2000s.

He had told the BBC: “We all carry a lot more digital ID now than we did 20 years ago, and I think that, psychologically, it plays a different part.”

The civil liberty group Big Brother Watch also warned against their introduction. A petition started by the group has reached more than 101,000 signatures.

In a letter to Starmer on Wednesday, the group said: “Mandatory digital ID is highly unlikely to achieve the Government’s objective of tackling unauthorised immigration.

“The proposed schemes fundamentally misunderstand the ‘pull factors’ that drive migration to the UK and would do very little to tackle criminal people-smuggling gangs or employers and landlords who operate ‘off the books’.

“Instead, it would push unauthorised migrants further into the shadows, into more precarious work and unsafe housing.”

With reporting from Press Association and David Mac Redmond