Greg Hands will not resign as Tory party chair despite Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire by-election losses
Greg Hands has said he will not resign as Conservative Party chair despite the government suffering another two by-election defeats in safe Tory seats.
Mr Hands said the results in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire – where the Labour Party overturned substantial Tory majorities – were “clearly disappointing”, but blamed low turnout among traditional Conservative voters.
He sought to deflect blame away from Rishi Sunak, saying the defeats – which came on the back of two by-election losses in July – were the result of “legacy issues” that pre-dated Mr Sunak’s time in office.
Asked whether he would consider his position as party chair in light of the defeats, Mr Hands replied: “No.”
Mr Hands, who was appointed Tory party chair in February, said “clearly there’s unhappiness with the Conservative Party” as he admitted the party needed to “reflect” on why its voters did not go to the polls.
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“I might say that the big problem we have is still Conservative voters staying at home,” Mr Hands told Sky News.
“The Labour vote hardly went up at all, in fact it went down slightly in Mid Bedfordshire, no breakthrough for the Liberal Democrats.
“But clearly disappointing for us and we’ll have to reflect on the fact that a large number of Conservative voters stayed at home.”
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Double by-election defeat for Tories
However, he said the Tories will be “very hopeful of regaining those two seats” at the next election.
Mr Hands’s decision to stay in post comes in contrast to his predecessor, Oliver Dowden, who quit as party chair following two by-election defeats in Tiverton and Honiton and Wakefield last year.
The Labour Party is celebrating after it claimed two by-election victories in Tamworth, Staffordshire, and in Mid Bedfordshire.
The by-elections had been called following the resignations of the previous MPs Chris Pincher and Nadine Dorries.
Mr Pincher resigned in September after he lost an appeal against an eight-week suspension from the Commons following the groping allegations that precipitated the downfall of Boris Johnson as prime minister.
Former cabinet minister Ms Dorries officially resigned in August – 81 days after she announced she would quit the Commons with “immediate effect”.
In Tamworth, the Conservatives were defending a 19,600 majority, but a 23.9 percentage point swing to Labour saw that eradicated.
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‘Country is so desperate for change’
The historic result, declared shortly before 3am, was the second-highest-ever by-election swing to Labour.
Mid Bedfordshire saw the largest numeric Tory majority ever overturned by Labour at a by-election since 1945.
The Conservatives have held the rural seat since 1931, winning with a 24,664 majority in 2019.
Mr Hands stressed there were “very specific circumstances” surrounding the by-elections in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire and that he believed they were not a “good indicator” of how the general election will turn out.
The party’s defeats have been criticised by its own MPs, with Dame Andrea Jenkyns saying the Tories needed to make “far-reaching major changes now”.
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Writing on social media, Dame Andrea said: “Voter apathy is evident yet again in both the #ByElections, low turnout -20k failed to turnout in Tamworth, 24k failed to turnout in Mid Beds since the last election.
“We need to make far-reaching major changes now to instil confidence in the Conservative voters.”
David Frost, the UK’s former chief Brexit negotiator, said the results were “extremely bad for my party”.
“I don’t think it helps to suggest otherwise, as some party figures have done this morning,” he posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“The current national polls are dreadful for us but these results are even worse.
“Yes, things are different at by-elections and there were probably special factors. But these results show that the national polls are broadly correct and that a strategy of denial is unlikely to work.”
But Labour’s national campaign co-ordinator Pat McFadden said the results overnight were “not normal” for the Tories.
“These were not constituencies that were even on our target list, so really big, important results, indicating change in politics,” he told Sky News.
“We’re absolutely delighted with our victories last night but of course conscious as well that we’ve still got a lot of work to do between now and a general election.”
Taiwanese lawmaker Ko Ju-Chun has called on the government to consider adding Bitcoin to its national reserves, suggesting it could serve as a hedge against global economic uncertainty.
Ko, a legislator at-large in Taiwan’s legislative body, the Legislative Yuan, took to X on Friday to report that he had advocated Bitcoin (BTC) investment by the Taiwanese government at the National Conference on May 9.
In his remarks, Ko cited Bitcoin’s potential to become a hedge amid global economic risks and urged Taiwan to recognize the cryptocurrency alongside gold and foreign exchange reserves to boost its financial resilience.
Ko’s announcement came shortly after the legislator held talks with Samson Mow, who advocates for Bitcoin adoption by states like El Salvador at his BTC tech firm Jan3.
Taiwan is an export-oriented economy
Ko highlighted that Taiwan is an export-driven economy that has experienced significant fluctuations in its national currency, the New Taiwan dollar, amid global inflation and intensifying geopolitical risks.
“We currently have a gold reserve of 423 metric tons, and our foreign exchange reserves amount to $577 billion, including investments in US Treasury bonds,” the lawmaker stated.
In a scenario of more intense currency volatility or potential regional conflicts, Taiwan may “very likely be unable to ensure the security and liquidity,” Ko continued, adding that Bitcoin could be a great addition to Taiwan’s reserves for several reasons.
“Bitcoin has been operating for over 15 years. It has a fixed total supply, is decentralized, and is resistant to censorship. Many countries are focusing on its hedging attributes. At the same time, in intense situations, it may not face the risk of embargo,” he said.
Bitcoin is not the only solution
Referring to many global initiatives considering Bitcoin adoption as a reserve asset, Ko stressed that he’s not advocating for Bitcoin as the “only solution” to rising economic challenges.
Instead, the legislator suggested adding a “small proportion of Bitcoin” into the diversified assets as tools for sovereign asset allocation and risk hedging, and backup capacity of Taiwan’s financial system.
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He previously suggested that Taiwan could allocate a maximum of 5% of its $50 billion reserve to Bitcoin in an X post on May 6.
“When exchange rate risk and regional uncertainty increase, it is time to introduce new tools to construct a more flexible financial strategy framework,” Ko said, adding:
“As former Dean Chen Chong said, Bitcoin is the gun of the digital era. It may also be the gold of the digital era, the silver of the digital era. Or it could be gunpowder. A wise nation will not let weapons be in others’ hands.”
The news comes as Taiwan is emerging as a crypto-friendly jurisdiction, with the Financial Supervisory Commission pushing institutional trials of crypto custody services in late 2024.
Mainland China continues to maintain its hostile stance on cryptocurrency after imposing a ban on multiple crypto activities, including mining, in 2021.
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German law enforcement seized 34 million euros ($38 million) in cryptocurrency from eXch, a cryptocurrency platform allegedly used to launder funds stolen after Bybit’s record-breaking $1.4 billion hack.
The seizure, announced on May 9 by Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and Frankfurt’s main prosecutor’s office, involved multiple crypto assets, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Dash (DASH). The move marks the third-largest crypto confiscation in the BKA’s history.
The authorities also seized eXch’s German server infrastructure with over eight terabytes of data and shut down the platform, the announcement added.
eXch exchanged crypto without AML
In the statement, the BKA described eXch as a “swapping” service that allowed users to exchange various crypto assets without implementing Anti-Money Laundering (AML) measures.
The platform had operated since 2014 and reportedly facilitated about $1.9 billion in crypto transfers, some of which were believed to be of “criminal origin,” including assets laundered during the Bybit hack.
“Among other things, a portion of the $1.5 billion stolen from the Bybit crypto exchange, which was hacked on Feb. 21, 2025, is said to have been exchanged via eXch,” the authorities wrote.
Multisig, FixedFloat among laundering cases
According to a post by crypto sleuth ZachXBT, eXch was also involved in laundering millions of funds from other crypto thefts and exploits, including Multisig, FixedFloat and the $243 million Genesis creditor theft.
Those were in addition to “countless phishing drainer services over the past few years with refusal to block addresses and freeze orders,” ZachXBT said.
ZachXBT was among the first security analysts to report on eXch’s links to laundering $35 million of crypto assets stolen from Bybit soon after the hack was confirmed.
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“Lazarus Group transferred 5K ETH from the Bybit Hack to a new address and began laundering funds via eXch (a centralized mixer) and bridging funds to Bitcoin via Chainflip,” ZachXBT wrote in a Telegram post on Feb. 22.
eXch announced termination of services by May 1
After initially denying involvement in laundering funds from the Bybit hack, eXch eventually announced it would cease operations by May 1 in a Bitcoin Talk post published in mid-April.
“Even though we have been able to operate despite some failed attempts to shut down our infrastructure […], we don’t see any point in operating in a hostile environment where we are the target of SIGINT [Signals Intelligence] simply because some people misinterpret our goals,” it wrote.
Addressing the seizure, senior public prosecutor Benjamin Krause stressed the importance of action against “quick and anonymous opportunities for money laundering for any amount.”
“Crypto swapping is an essential component of the underground economy, used to conceal incriminated funds from illegal activities such as hacking or trading in stolen payment card data, thus making them available to perpetrators,” he said.
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