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Sir Keir Starmer used to accuse Boris Johnson of “serial incompetence” over his propensity for U-turns, but on Wednesday the UK prime minister was charged with presiding over policies built on sand.
Starmer’s decision to scrap his plan to make digital ID mandatory for newly hired workers was the latest major policy reversal in recent weeks and chancellor Rachel Reeves indicated that another retreat was on its way.
Reeves said she would announce support for pubs, punished by tax changes in November’s Budget, “in the next few days”. But the chancellor is coming under mounting pressure to help other hospitality businesses too.
One Labour MP said the U-turn on ID cards was symptomatic of a prime minister who did not have strong political instincts. “He’s trying to get himself out of a mess of his own creation. It’s a desperate situation.”
Starmer’s allies say that ditching unpopular policies — mandatory ID cards were becoming toxic with voters — is a sensible thing to do now, given the perilous elections in Scotland, Wales and England looming in May.
The prime minister’s previous statements are now coming back to haunt him, however. “To correct one error, even two, might make sense,” Starmer said of Johnson in 2020. “But when they’ve notched up 12 U-turns and rising, the only conclusion is serial incompetence.”
Starmer has been racking up his own U-turns in recent months, many of them with huge fiscal consequences. “Once you start doing U-turns, it’s a problem for the Treasury,” admitted one minister.
He was forced to drop £5bn of welfare cuts, watered down cuts to winter fuel payments to pensioners and ordered an end to the two-child benefit cap, having previously suspended seven Labour MPs for voting against the party’s previous policy of keeping the limit.
A plan to raise income tax to cover the cost of some of those U-turns was itself abandoned ahead of the November Budget, while Reeves bowed to pressure from farmers just before Christmas and diluted her inheritance tax proposals.
Kemi Badenoch, Tory leader, on Wednesday mocked Starmer during prime minister’s questions.
“Can I welcome the prime minister’s latest U-turn, I feel like I say that every week,” she said, adding that “mandatory digital ID was a rubbish policy, and we on this side of the house are glad to see the back of it”.
Badenoch said she expected reforms to the jury system to be Starmer’s next U-turn. The FT reported this week that discussions had begun inside government on softening plans to abolish juries for thousands of criminal cases.
The retreat on mandatory ID cards was welcomed by some Labour MPs and those inside government said it had been inevitable. One official said: “It’s a mess but it’s a good U-turn.”
Starmer will now try to build support for the wider digital ID card policy by presenting it as a way of making it easier for people to access government services.
Public support for ID cards has plummeted over the past year. In December 2024 the policy was supported by 59 per cent of voters, but that had fallen to 38 per cent by last month, according to YouGov. The proportion of people opposed has grown from 23 per cent to 47 per cent.
One Labour MP said: “I just want to see the whole thing go away. My constituents hate it.” The MP said that GB News had been influential in persuading voters that ID cards were a bad thing.
The latest U-turn raises renewed questions over Starmer’s judgment. The digital ID scheme, launched last year, was meant to fend off Reform UK claims that the government was not doing enough to tackle illegal working.
Wes Streeting, health secretary and a potential leadership challenger to Starmer, on Monday referred to an initiative in the NHS known as “GIRFT”. “That should be our new year’s resolution for 2026. Let’s try and get it right first time,” he said.