Tony Blair aides wanted asylum holding camp on Scottish island
Tony Blair’s government considered setting up a holding camp on the Isle of Mull to drive down the number of asylum seekers entering the UK, according to newly released official papers.
The plan, put forward by one of the then-Labour prime minister’s closest aides, was part of a “nuclear option” that would see people who arrived in the UK by unauthorised means detained on the Scottish island before being removed.
Drawn up just months before the US-UK invasion of Iraq, the scheme also called for the creation of regional “safe havens” in countries such as Turkey and South Africa, where refugees who could not be returned to their own country could be sent.
Although the plan was not taken up, it echoes the debate still taking place more than 20 years later around Rishi Sunak’s plans to deport people to Rwanda, with officials in Blair’s government also discussing denouncing the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to get the scheme going.
The proposals, contained in files released by the National Archives in Kew, west London, reflect Mr Blair’s frustration that “ever-tougher controls” in northern France had not had an impact on the number of asylum claims – which reached a new monthly high of 8,800 in October 2002.
“We must search out even more radical measures,” Mr Blair scrawled in a handwritten note.
Following a brainstorming session with senior officials and advisers, the prime minister’s chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, produced a paper entitled Asylum: The Nuclear Option, in which he questioned whether the UK needed an asylum system at all.
Mr Powell said because the UK was an island, people who had arrived by sea had already passed through a safe country “so in fact what we should be looking at is a very simple system that immediately returns people who arrive here illegally”.
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Rwanda: PM avoids damaging defeat but braces for showdown next year
He said that officials in the office of the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, had suggested setting up a camp on the Isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides where people could be detained until they could be removed.
Mr Powell said the government would have to legislate to allow for the removal of people despite the risk of persecution.
“We would like to extend this to return any illegal immigrant regardless of the risk that they might suffer human or degrading treatment,” he advised.
He conceded the plan would be challenged by the ECHR in Strasbourg but said this would take two to three years and in the meantime “we could send a strong message into the system about our new tough stance”.
He said if the government lost in Strasbourg “we would denounce the ECHR and immediately re-ratify with a reservation on Article 3 (the right not to be tortured)”.
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Home Office lawyers warned that the measures would fall foul of the Geneva Convention on refugees.
An exasperated Mr Blair scrawled “just return them”, adding: “This is precisely the point. We must not allow the ECHR to stop us dealing with it.”
The discussion draws parallels with Mr Sunak’s flagship Rwanda plan.
The deportation scheme has cost £290m despite no flights taking off due to a series of legal challenges. Mr Sunak has put forward legislation to address this but it has caused a war among his own MPs, with Tories on the right wanting it to go further and those on the moderate wing keen to stick to the UK’s international obligations.
Blair supported return of Elgin Marbles to Greece
Echoing another debate that is still ongoing, other cabinet papers released today reveal Mr Blair was keen to return the Elgin Marbles to Greece in an attempt to boost support for London’s bid to host the Olympic Games in 2012.
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The Elgin Marbles and Greece’s fight to get them back.
Number 10 advisers believed the Marbles – also known as the Parthenon Sculptures – could be a “powerful bargaining chip” but warned any attempt to reach a sharing agreement with Athens could face stiff resistance due to the “blinkered intransigence” of the British Museum, where they have been housed since the 19th century.
Greece has long demanded the return of the marbles but the debate spiralled into a diplomatic row last month after Mr Sunak ditched a planned meeting with his Greek counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who he accused of grandstanding over the issue.
The ancient sculptures were removed by Lord Elgin from occupied Athens in the early 19th century and are now owned by the British Museum – with Downing Street said to be opposed to any sort of loan agreement that would allow their return.
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Number 10 ‘lost credibility under Alistair Campbell’
Alastair Campbell was Blair’s top aide for most of his premiership
Also in the cabinet office files were revelations about the perception of Mr Blair’s combative communications chief Alastair Campbell, who spent nine years as the former PM’s closet aide.
After Mr Campbell resigned in 2003, Mr Blair was warned by remaining advisers that the Number 10 press office had lost “all credibility.. as a truthful operation” under his reign and that the prime minister’s own authority was being undermined because Downing Street was seen as a “politically-dominated spin machine”.
The warnings followed a series of bruising rows between the Labour government and the BBC over its coverage of the US-UK invasion of Iraq in 2003.
A US federal judge has agreed to pause a lawsuit filed by 18 state attorneys general and the crypto lobby group DeFi Education Fund against the Securities and Exchange Commission after all parties said new SEC leadership could make the action moot.
Kentucky District Court Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove ordered a 60-day stay on the case on April 16, noting a mid-March filing from the SEC that “this case could potentially be resolved” due to a leadership transition at the regulator.
He added that the parties must file a joint status report within 30 days.
Paul Atkins, a Wall Street adviser who has held board positions with crypto advocacy groups, was sworn in as the new SEC chair earlier this month, replacing acting chair Mark Uyeda and taking over from Gary Gensler.
The 18 attorneys general, all hailing from Republican states, filed the lawsuit with the DeFi Education Fund against the securities regulator in November, alleging that the SEC exceeded its authority when targeting crypto exchanges with lawsuits, accusing the regulator and then-chair Gensler of “gross government overreach.”
The plaintiffs included attorneys general from Nebraska, Tennessee, Wyoming, Kentucky, West Virginia, Iowa, Texas, Mississippi, Ohio, Montana, Indiana, Oklahoma and Florida, among others.
“Without Congressional authorization, the SEC has sought to unilaterally wrest regulatory authority away from the States through an ongoing series of enforcement actions,” the lawsuit stated.
DeFi groups drop case against IRS over killed broker rule
Meanwhile, the DeFi Education Fund, Blockchain Association, and Texas Blockchain Council dropped their lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service on April 16.
“The parties hereby stipulate to voluntary dismissal of this action without prejudice because the case has become moot,” stated the filing.
The lawsuit, filed in December, argued that the so-called IRS DeFi broker rule went beyond the agency’s authority and was unconstitutional.
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On April 11, President Donald Trump signed a bill to revoke the rule that would have required DeFi protocols to report transactions to the IRS.
It comes as the SEC has paused or dropped several high-profile lawsuits against crypto companies this year under its new leadership.
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Panama’s capital city will accept cryptocurrency payments for taxes and municipal fees, including bus tickets and permits, Panama City mayor Mayer Mizrachi announced on April 15, joining a growing list of jurisdictions globally that have voted to accept such payments.
Panama City will begin accepting Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Circle’s USDC (USDC), and Tether’s USDt (USDT) stablecoin for payment once the crypto-to-fiat payment rails are established, Mizrachi posted on the X platform.
Mizrachi said previous administrations attempted to push through similar legislation but failed to overcome stipulations requiring the local government to accept funds denominated in US dollars.
In a translated statement, the Panama City mayor said that the local government partnered with a bank that will immediately convert any digital assets received into US dollars, allowing the municipality to accept crypto without introducing new legislation.
Panama City joins a growing list of global jurisdictions on the municipal and state level accepting cryptocurrency payments for taxes, exploring Bitcoin strategic reserves to protect public treasuries from inflation and passing pro-crypto policies to attract investment.
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Municipalities and states embrace digital assets
Several municipalities and territories around the globe already accept crypto for tax payments or are exploring various implementations of blockchain technology for government spending.
The US state of Colorado started accepting crypto payments for taxes in September 2022. Much like Panama City said it will do, Colorado immediately converts the crypto to fiat.
In December 2023, the city of Lugano, Switzerland, announced taxes and city fees could be paid in Bitcoin, which was one of the developments that earned it the reputation of being a globally recognized Bitcoin city.
The city council of Vancouver, Canada, passed a motion to become “Bitcoin-friendly city” in December 2024. As part of that motion, the Vancouver local government will explore integrating BTC into the financial system, including tax payments.
North Carolina lawmaker Neal Jackson introduced legislation titled “The North Carolina Digital Asset Freedom Act” on April 10. If passed, the bill will recognize cryptocurrencies as an official form of payment that can be used to pay taxes.
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As digital assets gain mainstream adoption, establishing a legal framework for stablecoins is a “good idea,” said US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
In an April 16 panel at the Economic Club of Chicago, Powell commented on the evolution of the cryptocurrency industry, which has delivered a consumer use case that “could have wide appeal” following a difficult “wave of failures and frauds,” he said.
Powell delivers remarks at the Economic Club of Chicago. Source: Bloomberg Television
During crypto’s difficult years, which culminated in 2022 and 2023 with several high-profile business failures, the Fed “worked with Congress to try to get a […] legal framework for stablecoins, which would have been a nice place to start,” said Powell. “We were not successful.”
“I think that the climate is changing and you’re moving into more mainstreaming of that whole sector, so Congress is again looking […] at a legal framework for stablecoins,” he said.
“Depending on what’s in it, that’s a good idea. We need that. There isn’t one now,” said Powell.
This isn’t the first time Powell acknowledged the need for stablecoin legislation. In June 2023, the Fed boss told the House Financial Services Committee that stablecoins were “a form of money” that requires “robust” federal oversight.
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Support for stablecoin legislation is growing
The election of US President Donald Trump has ushered in a new era of pro-crypto appointments and policy shifts that could make America a digital asset superpower.
Washington’s formal embrace of cryptocurrency began earlier this year when Trump established the President’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets, with Bo Hines as the executive director.
Hines told a digital asset summit in New York last month that a comprehensive stablecoin bill was a top priority for the current administration. After the Senate Banking Committee passed the GENIUS Act, a final stablecoin bill could arrive at the president’s desk “in the next two months,” said Hines.
Bo Hines (right) speaks of “imminent” stablecoin legislation at the Digital Asset Summit on March 18. Source: Cointelegraph
Stablecoins pegged to the US dollar are by far the most popular tokens used for remittances and cryptocurrency trading.
The combined value of all stablecoins is currently $227 billion, according to RWA.xyz. The dollar-pegged USDC (USDC) and USDt (USDT) account for more than 88% of the total market.
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