UK Politics

Reform UK has pledged to cut taxes on cryptocurrencies and set up a “Bitcoin reserve” if elected.Party chairman Zia Yusuf told reporters on Friday that a Reform government would reduce capital gains tax on assets such as Bitcoin to 10% as part of a raft of reforms to how cryptocurrencies are governed.Mr Yusuf, who does not own cryptocurrency, suggested the cut could generate up to £1 billion for the Treasury over a decade, saying it would encourage more use of such currency and encourage people to move their assets to the UK.Cryptocurrencies currently incur capital gains tax of either 18% or 24%, depending on the rate of income tax paid by the person selling the assets.Mr Yusuf also announced that Reform would allow people to pay tax in Bitcoin and establish a “Bitcoin reserve fund” to “diversify” the UK’s reserve holdings.He said the UK was “losing ground” to other countries, and added that Reform’s proposals would help the financial services sector “catapult itself back into being a leader”.The announcement came as party leader Nigel Farage said Reform would begin accepting donations in cryptocurrency.Speaking at the Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas on Thursday, Mr Farage said: “My message to the British public, my message particularly to young people, is help us to help you bring our country properly into the 21st century.“Let’s recognise that crypto, Bitcoin, digital assets, are here to stay.”Mr Farage pledged that his party would “launch in Britain a crypto revolution” and make London “one of the major trading centres of the world”.On Friday, Mr Yusuf told reporters Reform had already received its first cryptocurrency donations, adding they were all compliant with Electoral Commission rules.Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have increased in popularity in recent years, with research suggesting around 12% of adults in the UK own or have owned cryptoassets, up from 4% in 2021.Last month, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced plans to regulate cryptoassets in a bid to make the UK a “world leader”.She told a conference that she would “back the builders” as she announced plans to make crypto firms subject to regulation in the same way as traditional finance companies. More

Labour is set to plough tens of billions of pounds into red wall seats leaning towards Reform UK as the party ramps up its efforts to halt the rise of Nigel Farage. After months of haemorrhaging voters to Mr Farage’s populist outfit, Rachel Reeves will unveil spending for a slew of road, rail and green energy projects in the north and Midlands, according to reports. The chancellor will use next month’s spending review to reprioritise spending from the southeast to the red wall seats that Labour won at the last election, but are now under threat from Reform, it is claimed.It could free up tens of billions of pounds to invest in the projects in areas where Labour fears Mr Farage’s appeal as part of an overall £100 billion pot Ms Reeves can use to invest in infrastructure after tweaking her fiscal rules in last year’s Budget. Touting the fiscal rule change in January in a speech promising to kickstart growth, Ms Reeves said: “We have changed course on public investment, too.Rachel Reeves is set to prioritise investment in red wall areas More

The Attorney General has drawn comparisons between calls for the UK to disregard international court rulings and the actions of Nazi Germany.Speaking in London on Thursday, Lord Richard Hermer KC criticised the notion that the UK could breach international obligations, branding it a “radical departure from the UK’s constitutional tradition”.In a speech to the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) thinktank, Lord Hermer highlighted the historical context of dismissing international law, noting that similar arguments were made in Germany during the early 1930s. He said that the claims that international law can be “put aside” were made in the early 1930s in Germany.Lord Hermer voiced concerns over what he sees as a growing sentiment within the UK, including within the Palace of Westminster, to abandon international legal constraints in favour of “raw power”. He cautioned against this approach, stating: “This is not a new song.””The claim that international law is fine as far as it goes, but can be put aside when conditions change, is a claim that was made in the early 1930s by ‘realist’ jurists in Germany, most notably Carl Schmitt, whose central thesis was in essence the claim that state power is all that counts, not law.” Attorney General Lord Richard Hermer said the idea that the UK can breach international obligations is a “radical departure from the UK’s constitutional tradition” More

A cloud hangs over the global economy, experts have warned, after a bombshell court ruling blocked Donald Trump’s tariffs, creating more “confusion and uncertainty”.Financial markets reacted positively to the unanimous ruling by three judges, but the decision enraged the White House, with the US president’s official spokesperson, Stephen Miller, calling it another “judge coup”.The White House has appealed the decision, but it means all of the president’s “Liberation Day” tariffs now face a protracted legal process that could overshadow trade talks and delay the implementation of existing deals, including with Britain.The Trump administration has won a temporary reprieve through the appeal, which means the tariffs will be reinstated while the case makes its way through the courts.The Trump administration has reacted angrily to the ruling More

What Sir Keir Starmer said in his speech in St Helens today mattered less than the extraordinary fact that he felt the need to do it at all.It is still less than a year after winning a majority of 174 seats in a sweeping general election result last year, yet Sir Keir felt the need to attack the leader of Reform UK which – checks notes – only has five MPs.The question was asked whether Nigel Farage is “living rent-free in the prime minister’s head”, and it felt rhetorical because the answer was clearly, yes.Starmer rolled up his sleeves to take on Reform More

Sir Keir Starmer has left the door open to scrapping the two-child benefit cap amid mounting pressure from backbench Labour MPs and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.MPs from across Labour have repeatedly urged the prime minister to scrap or ease the limit – first imposed by austerity architect George Osborne in 2015 – amid growing concern over the direction of the party. Days after Mr Farage said a Reform government would get rid of it entirely, Sir Keir said he is looking at “all options” to lift children out of poverty.The prime minister is under mounting pressure to scrap the cap More

Nigel Farage’s plans to restrict access to abortion would have “catastrophic consequences for women”, campaigners have warned. The Reform UK leader this week said it is “ludicrous we allow abortion up to 24 weeks” and the law is “totally out of date”.MPs and charities have hit back, saying there is “no clinical justification” for reducing the time limit and warned against the “imposition of cruel restrictions” on women seeking abortions. Nigel Farage said Britain’s abortion laws are ‘ludicrous’ More

In their haste to be seen as Donald Trump’s closest buddies, there is now a serious question mark over whether Sir Keir Starmer and his government should have shown more patience in getting a “great and beautiful” trade deal with the US.The deal, which was symbolically the first post-“Liberation Day” agreement signed by President Trump with any country, was put in place to reduce the impact of the tariffs the US president had imposed.But while Sir Keir and the rest of the world’s leaders were rapidly scrambling to respond, calmer, more measured voices in Washington were warning that the US president would never be able to go through with them.Now, it seems they were right, with the US Court of International Trade ruling that Trump “exceeded his authority” when he imposed his sweeping levies on countries across the world and has blocked the move.President Donald Trump’s liberation day tariffs have been ruled illegal by a court in the US More