London (26 September 2025) – The Social Democratic Party (SDP), Britain’s party of the patriotic state, opposes the government’s planned digital ID system – on four main grounds.
First, the SDP rejects the claim that such a system is necessary to reduce illegal migration. Existing “right to work” checks are more than sufficient to stop the employment of illegal aliens. The government should instead crackdown on black market and gig economy firms that fail to enforce existing right to work checks. Such a crackdown, paired with the detention and deportation of all illegal arrivals into Britain, would end the crisis of illegal migration.
Secondly, rather than being in the interests of the British people, the planned digital ID system exists to further the interests of multinational technology firms. The main domestic champion of digital ID, the Tony Blair Institute, has received several millions of pounds in donations since 2021 from Larry Ellison, co-founder and executive chairman of Oracle. Oracle may be a vendor for much of the enterprise database software that will underpin the government’s digital ID system.
Thirdly, the new digital ID system represents a blatant attempt at state capture by big tech. As constituted, the system’s implementation will represent a wealth transfer in the order of tens of billions of pounds from the British people to Silicon Valley software firms and contractors. The digital ID system will also grant big tech unprecedented access to vast amounts of data on the British public, allowing significant opportunities for profit at our collective expense.
Finally, the planned digital ID system is a security risk of unprecedented proportions. One Login, the existing system which will underpin the digital ID scheme, is riddled with fundamental security flaws. Many of the contractors for One Login have not undergone basic security vetting, with much of the development having been outsourced to Romania. Internal simulations of a cyberattack have shown that One Login can be commandeered by external actors to produce fake IDs, shut down the system nation-wide, and steal the IDs of millions of British citizens.
William Clouston, SDP Leader, said:
“The SDP is the party of the patriotic state. We accept that sometimes individual liberties must be balanced against collective goods. But what collective good does digital ID solve? It does not solve the challenge of illegal migration – which is a problem only due to weak elites that refuse to use the tools they already have.
“Instead, I believe this new digital ID scheme is a desperate move by a teetering government to keep key backers of the Starmer government on-side. Big tech firms, and the sinister interest groups that have benefitted from their largesse, are turning the screws to force an expensive, insecure, and pointless digital ID system on the public while the political opportunity still remains. It must be rejected.”
Note to editors:
- For further information, and to arrange interviews, please contact jack.goodwin@sdp.org.uk
