Ten months ago Keir Starmer warned that anyone without a government digital ID "will not be able to work in the United Kingdom." On Tuesday - day two of the Burnham premiership - the scheme was formally killed off.
It wasn't the nearly 2.9 million people who signed the petition. It wasn't the civil liberties groups who dragged it through Parliament. It died because the new Prime Minister needed £1.8 billion to scrap VAT on electricity bills.
In his first major act in No 10, Andy Burnham announced that VAT will come off domestic electricity bills from October 1, timed to land before the next Ofgem price cap. Qualifying small businesses, charities and care homes benefit too. New Chancellor John Healey - installed Monday evening after Rachel Reeves was shown the door - said the move "is funded this year from cancelling the Digital ID programme," which the government prices at £1.8 billion over three years.
So ends BritCard: sold as the answer to illegal migration, buried as a line item in somebody else's tax cut.
A Short, Unhappy Life
None of this will surprise regular readers. When Starmer unveiled the plan last September, officials admitted its "efficacy depends on everyone having them" - universal or nothing. The pitch
