Tory MPs have called for Sir Keir Starmer to “get off the fence” and tell Sadiq Khan to axe the expansion of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) after a court ruled the plans are lawful.
Government ministers stressed the matter was out of their hands as they turned their attention to the Labour leader’s position on the controversial policy.
But a senior Starmer ally appeared to rule out an intervention on Friday night, saying while Sir Keir is against the ULEZ expansion, it is a devolved matter so the party “will have to take it on the chin”.
On Friday, London’s Labour mayor Mr Khan hailed a “landmark” ruling after a judge said he had the power to expand ULEZ, the zone where polluting vehicles can be charged £12.50 a day.
But Transport Secretary Mark Harper said: “Just because he has the right to doesn’t mean he should clobber hard working Londoners.”
Mr Harper said the government opposes the scheme but because transport is a devolved matter there is nothing they can do to stop it.
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“It’s a Labour London Mayor that’s made this decision. We’ve called on the leader of the Labour party to tell the London mayor not to roll out this scheme,” he said.
Image: London’s Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) is to be expanded in August
Business Secretary Grant Shapps also called out Sir Keir directly.
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In a tweet he said: “Labour will take this as a win, but hardworking people will lose because Sadiq Khan doesn’t care about hitting drivers with unneeded costs.
“Lets see what kind of Leader @Keir_Starmeris. Time to get off the fence & tell your Mayor to do the right thing and stop the ULEZ expansion.”
Deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden said the High Court ruling was a “loss for hardworking people” in his constituency, which borders Greater London, adding: “Keir Starmer should tell his Mayor to abandon this unnecessary and unfair expansion.”
Labour’s failure to win Boris Johnson’s old seat – which seemed ripe for the taking amid a double digit lead in the polls – was widely blamed on the issue.
Tory MPs are now eyeing an opportunity to draw a dividing line with Labour on environmental policies that impose a direct cost on consumers.
Mr Khan has a statuary duty to improve London’s air quality.
But Mr Harper claimed: “This is about raising money, that’s what people can see and it’s part of the reason for the result in the Uxbridge by-election.”
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Sadiq Khan says ULEZ ‘landmark decision is good news for London’.
Labour ‘will have to take ULEZ on the chin’
Mr Khan was standing by his plan for ULEZ following Friday’s court challenge, which was brought by five Tory-led councils in outer London areas.
It poses a fresh headache for Sir Keir, who in recent days has declined to say if London’s charge on polluting vehicles should go ahead.
Senior party figures were quick to urge Mr Khan to reflect on the policy in the wake of the by-election and on Thursday, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said now is not the right time to “clobber” Londoners with the ULEZ charge.
However on Friday, shadow cabinet minister Wes Streeting went further and told Times Radio: “I think Keir has been very clear that he doesn’t want it to go ahead at this stage, as has [shadow Chancellor] Rachel Reeves. I would agree with them.
“But Sadiq is the Mayor of London. He doesn’t answer to us, he answers to Londoners.”
Mr Streeting said that “If you believe in devolution you believe in his right to do that”.
“We’re going to have to take it on the chin. And he’s going to take the criticism on the chin and we’ll see what happens.”
Mr Khan argues ULEZ will incentivise people to use cleaner transport alternatives and, as a result, help improve the city’s air quality.
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2:21
ULEZ expansion ruled legal
Speaking after the judgement he told Sky News: “The decision to expand ULEZ was a difficult one for me to take, it wasn’t taken lightly, but it’s essential we make more progress cleaning up the air in our city.”
Referencing the opposition to the scheme and the debate surrounding it, Mr Khan said: “I have been listening and I will carry on listening” but added that the High Court ruling was “quite clear”.
Later, he tweeted a reference to the climate emergency.
“Everything we hold dear depends on a world that we can live in. From the shores of the Mediterranean to the Canadian Rockies, the earth is burning. Our global leaders must keep to the promises they have made to secure the future of our planet against the climate crisis.”
Tulip Siddiq has told Sky News her “lawyers are ready” to handle any formal questions about allegations she is involved in corruption in Bangladesh.
Asked whether she regrets apparent links with the Bangladeshi Awami League political party, Ms Siddiq said “why don’t you look at my legal letter and see if I have any questions to answer… [the Bangladeshi authorities] have not once contacted me and I’m waiting to hear from them”.
Lawyers acting for Ms Siddiq wrote to the Bangladeshi Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) several weeks ago saying the allegations were “false and vexatious”.
The letter said the ACC must put questions to Ms Siddiq “by no later than 25 March 2025” or “we shall presume that there are no legitimate questions to answer”.
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Staff from the NCA visited Bangladesh as part of initial work to support the interim government in the country.
In a post online today, the former minister said the deadline had expired and the authorities had not replied.
Sky News has approached the Bangladeshi government for comment.
The allegations against Ms Siddiq are focused on links to her aunt Sheikh Hasina – who served as the prime minister of Bangladesh for 20 years.
She is accused of becoming an autocrat, with politically-motivated arrests, extra-judicial killings and other abuses allegedly happening on her watch. Hasina claims it’s all a political witch hunt.
Ms Siddiq was found to have lived in several London properties that had links back to the Awami League political party that her aunt still leads.
She referred herself to the prime minister’s standards adviser Sir Laurie Magnus who said he had “not identified evidence of improprieties” but added it was “regrettable” Ms Siddiq had not been more alert to the “potential reputational risks” of the ties to her aunt.
Ms Siddiq said continuing in her role would be “a distraction” for the government but insisted she had done nothing wrong.
Cryptocurrency exchange OKX reportedly hired former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to advise it over the federal probe that resulted in the firm pleading guilty to several violations and agreeing to pay $505 million in fines and penalties.
Cuomo, a New York-registered attorney, advised OKX on legal issues stemming from the probe sometime after August 2021 when he resigned as New York overnor, Bloomberg reported on April 2, citing people familiar with the matter.
“He spoke with company executives regularly and counseled them on how to respond to the criminal investigation,” Bloomberg said.
The Seychelles-based firm pled guilty to operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business in violation of US Anti-Money Laundering laws on Feb. 24 and agreed to pay $84 million worth of penalties while forfeiting $421 million worth of fees earned from mostly institutional clients.
The breaches occurred from 2018 to 2024 despite OKX having an official policy preventing US persons from transacting on its crypto exchange since 2017, the Department of Justice noted at the time.
A spokesperson for Cuomo, Rich Azzopardi, told Bloomberg that Cuomo has been providing private legal services representing individuals and corporations on a variety of matters since resigning as New York governor.
“He has not represented clients before a New York city or state agency and routinely recommends former colleagues for positions,” Azzopardi added.
OKX reportedly wasn’t willing to comment on its relationships with outside firms.
Cuomo also influenced OKX to make executive appointments: Bloomberg
Cuomo, who is now running for mayor of New York City, also advised OKX to appoint his friend US Attorney Linda Lacewell to OKX’s board of directors, Bloomberg said.
Lacewell, a former superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services, was added to the board in 2024 and was named OKX’s new chief legal officer on April 1, according to a recent company statement.
After the investigation concluded, OKX said it would seek out a compliance consultant to remedy the issues stemming from the federal probe and bolster its regulatory compliance program.
“Our vision is to make OKX the gold standard of global compliance at scale across different markets and their respective regulatory bodies,”OKX CEO Star Xu said in a Feb. 24 X post.
United States President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing reciprocal tariffs on trading partners and a 10% baseline tariff on all imports from all countries.
The reciprocal levies on will be approximately half of what trading partners charge for US imports, Trump said. For example, China currently has a tariff of 67% on US imports, so US reciprocal tariffs on Chinese goods will be 34%. Trump also announced a standard 25% tariff on all automobile imports.
Trump told the media that tariffs would return the country to economic prosperity seen in previous centuries:
“From 1789 to 1913, we were a tariff-backed nation. The United States was proportionately the wealthiest it has ever been. So wealthy, in fact, that in the 1880s, they established a commission to decide what they were going to do with the vast sums of money they were collecting.”
“Then, in 1913, for reasons unknown to mankind, they established the income tax so that citizens, rather than foreign countries, would start paying,” Trump said.
Full breakdown of reciprocal tariffs by country. Source: Cointelegraph
Trump presented the tariffs through the lens of economic protectionism and hinted at returning to the economic policies of the 19th century by using them to replace the income tax.
Trump proposes eliminating federal income tax and replacing it with tariff revenue
Trump proposed the idea of abolishing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and funding the federal government exclusively through trade tariffs while still on the campaign trail in October 2024.
US President Donald Trump addresses the media about reciprocal trade tariffs at the April 2 press event. Source: Fox 4 Dallas
The higher range of the tax savings estimate will only occur if other wage-based taxes are eliminated at the state and municipal levels.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who assumed office in February, also voiced support for replacing the IRS with the “External Revenue Service.”
Lutnick said that the US government cannot balance a budget yet consistently demands more from its citizens every year. Tariffs will also protect American workers and strengthen the US economy, he said.