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The UK government is planning to introduce mandatory digital ID cards for all adults. Downing Street believes this will help tackle illegal immigration by making it harder for undocumented individuals to work. The goal is to deter small boat crossings. #DigitalID #UKPolitics #Immigration #SmallBoats
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Breaking news now. Digital ID will be
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made law for all adults in an effort to
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tackle small boats. Downing Street
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believes that a mandatory ID card system
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will help stop illegal immigrants
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working. Let's bring in our political
0:14
correspondent, Mari Aurora. Mari, what
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uh what more do we know about this?
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Yeah. Well, Gareth, um this is
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interesting because this is something
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that has been spoken about a lot. Um
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Tony Blair for instance has been talking
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about this for years and years as what
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he always believed was one of the best
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ways to try and reduce illegal
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immigration and the ability for people
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to work illegally here in the UK. Um but
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Sky News understands that we will uh
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have an announcement could be as soon as
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tomorrow from the prime minister on
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these mandatory ID cards, an ID card
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system, the Brit card. And essentially
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what this will mean, it will be
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mandatory for all adults here in the UK.
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Um it will make it easier for employers
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and for landlords to make sure that
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those they are employing or or renting
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or um to actually have the right legal
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immigration status here in the UK, they
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can do it using a smartphone app. It's
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also um according to the government
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going to make it easier for people here
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in the UK to essentially prove their
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status or their ability to kind of
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qualify to be able to work here in the
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UK. Um, and essentially this is all
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about immigration. This is all about
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trying to uh tackle small boats
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crossings. We've had a lot of
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conversation about small boats and about
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other European countries, especially the
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French who have been concerned with uh
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the kind of pull factors here in the UK
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um in terms of being able to work in the
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black market, being able to work
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illegally here in the UK. We already
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know that France has an ID uh card
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system. they've had it for many many
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years. Um, and it's something that the
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UK has always resisted partly because of
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questions around civil liberties and
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freedoms. Um, but also because many
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governments in previous times said they
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didn't think it was the best approach.
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Now clearly Karma has been persuaded of
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the benefits of a digital ID card system
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and has been persuaded that this might
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have um a significant impact on small
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boats crossings. The question really,
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and this is always going to be the
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million-dollar question, is once this
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comes into play and once it is enforced,
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how much of an impact could it have on
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small boats crossings? And if it has a
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really significant impact on uh small
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boats crossings and it really kind of
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starts to eradicate that pull factor uh
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for um illegal migrants coming to the UK
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because I think they can essentially
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make money on the side illegally
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as opposed to somewhere like that in
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France.
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um how much of an impact does that have
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and if it doesn't have a huge impact
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then of course there'll be size of
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disappointment I think from within the
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Labour
#Visa & Immigration
#Politics