David Cameron warns of ‘danger and instability’ in the world as he defends UK strikes on Houthi targets
Not taking military action against the Houthis would have led to “more attacks” in the Red Sea, according to Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron.
The British military took part in a joint operation in Yemen alongside the US this week in retaliation for the targeting of international trade in the key shipping lane – followed up by a fresh attack by the US on Friday night.
Lord Cameron said the action by the Houthis was “effectively terrorist attacks”, adding: “If you don’t act against the Houthis in the Red Sea, you are going to see more attacks.”
And he hinted the government would be willing to join in further military action, telling Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Philips the UK had “demonstrated that we are prepared to follow words and warning with action”.
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RAF Typhoons strike military targets in Yemen
Lord Cameron also warned: “It is hard to think of a time when there has been so much danger and insecurity and instability in the world.
“The lights are absolutely flashing red on the global dashboard and what we need at that time is strong leadership and a plan and that is what we have with the prime minister and the team in place.”
The foreign secretary further defended the initial response to the attacks on ships in the Red Sea, saying there had been 26 incidents since November – including an attack on HMS Diamond, that saw over 20 drones and missiles used by the Houthis.
Asked about concerns that the military operation could lead to an escalation in tensions in the Middle East, the foreign secretary said: “What are the consequences of not acting?
“We have endured almost two months of continual attacks and we gave warning after warning and frankly, ultimately that wasn’t working and the number of attacks was going up, the severity of those attacks was going up.
“So not acting is also a policy, and it was a policy that wasn’t working.”
A spokesman for the Yemeni armed forces in the Houthi-controlled north of the country said in a televised statement that the bombardment “will not go unanswered and unpunished” – saying it would not deter their support for Palestinians amid Israel’s war in Gaza.
Lord Cameron denied any link between the Red Sea attacks, saying the action was “completely separate”.
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Houthis vow ‘punishment’ for attacks
However, also speaking to Trevor Philips, the former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, said the strikes had “inevitable” connections to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
“If one’s being rational in analysis, I agree with David Cameron that freedom of navigation is a different issue from Gaza, but the Arab street doesn’t think that,” he said.
“Inevitably there’s a connection. They’re going to have an impact across the whole area.”
Cameron may need to keep unintended consequences in mind
If there’s a foreign policy mantra to be extracted from David Cameron’s time as prime minister, it is likely around the cost of doing nothing.
As he wrote in his memoir about the 2011 intervention in Libya to stop a massacre in Benghazi, “to do nothing in these circumstances was not a neutral act – it was to facilitate murder”.
Two years after the Libya strikes and Cameron made a similar argument to persuade MPs to back bombing in Syria. It didn’t work.
He was defeated in a Commons vote and ruled out any intervention.
The now Lord Cameron says he still believes that was a mistake, but denies he is “over-correcting” by taking a firm line against the Houthis.
It is worth looking at how events in Libya and Syria ultimately played out though.
After initial claims of a new era of freedom, Libya eventually descended into violence, with the UK intervention criticised as ill-informed and lacking in strategy.
In Syria, President Assad remains in power, while Russian involvement there has increased Moscow’s influence in the region.
Two countries. Two different approaches. One similarly undesirable outcome for the UK.
A related danger hangs over military involvement against the Houthis. Set against the wider turbulence in the Middle East, any direct Western involvement must present a risk of triggering uncontrolled escalation.
Far from the cost of doing nothing, it may be the rule of unintended consequences that the foreign secretary should keep in mind.
The government has got the support of Labour in the action, with shadow health secretary Wes Streeting telling Sky News it was an “open and shut case”.
He also said his party understood the need to act “swiftly and decisively” without recalling parliament to debate the issue.
“These strikes were targeted and focussed and absolutely necessary in Britain’s self-defence and national interest,” Mr Streeting told Trevor Philips.
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How UK jets struck the Houthis
But the Liberal Democrats have attacked the government for “bypassing” parliament, and called for a retrospective vote on the action in the Commons when the prime minister makes a statement on Monday.
The party’s foreign affairs spokesperson, Layla Moran, said: “We remain very concerned about the Houthi’s attacks.
“But that makes it all the more important to ensure that MPs are not silenced on the important issue of military action.”
Lawmakers in the US states of Minnesota and Alabama filed companion bills to identical existing bills that if passed into law, would allow each state to buy Bitcoin.
The Minnesota Bitcoin Act, or HF 2946, was introduced to the state’s House by Republican Representative Bernie Perryman on April 1, following an identical bill introduced on March 17 by GOP state Senator Jeremy Miller.
Meanwhile, on the same day in Alabama, Republican state Senator Will Barfoot introduced Senate Bill 283, while a bi-partisan group of representatives led by Republican Mike Shaw filed the identical House Bill 482, which allows for the state to invest in crypto, but essentially limits it to Bitcoin (BTC).
Twin Alabama bills don’t explicitly name Bitcoin
Minnesota’s Bitcoin Act would allow the state’s investment board to invest state assets in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and permit state employees to add crypto to retirement accounts.
It would also exempt crypto gains from state income taxes and give residents the option to pay state taxes and fees with Bitcoin.
Source: Bitcoin Laws
The twin Alabama bills don’t explicitly identify Bitcoin, but would limit the state’s crypto investment into assets that have a minimum market value of $750 billion, a criterion that only Bitcoin currently meets.
26 Bitcoin reserve bills now introduced in the US
Introducing identical bills is not uncommon in the US and is typically done to speed up the bicameral legislative process so laws can pass more quickly.
Bills to create a Bitcoin reserve have been introduced in 26 US states, with Arizona currently the closest to passing a law to make one, according to data from the bill tracking website Bitcoin Laws.
Arizona currently leads in the US state Bitcoin reserve race. Source: Bitcoin Laws
Pennsylvania was one of the first US states to introduce a Bitcoin reserve bill, in November 2024. However, the initiative was reportedly eventually rejected, with similar bills also killed in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.
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Montana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Wyoming are the five states thathave rejected Bitcoin reserve initiatives. Source: Bitcoin Laws
According to a March 3 report by Barron’s, “red states” like Montana have faced setbacks to the Bitcoin reserve initiatives amid political confrontations between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.
Additional reporting by Helen Partz.
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Update (April 3, 5:43 am UTC): This article has been updated to add information on the STABLE Act and GENIUS Act.
The US House Financial Services Committee has passed a Republican-backed stablecoin framework bill, which will now head to the House floor for a full vote.
The Committee passed the Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for a Better Ledger Economy, or STABLE Act, with a 32-17 vote on April 2, with six Democrats voting in favor.
The bill was introduced on Feb. 6 by committee Chair French Hill and the chair of its Digital Assets Subcommittee, Bryan Steil — reportedly drafted with the help of the world’s largest stablecoin issue, Tether.
Source: Financial Services GOP
The bill would provide rules around payment stablecoins, a crypto token tied to a currency such as the US dollar, and aims to ensure issuers give information about their business and how they back their tokens.
During an earlier markup session, the committee’s leading Democrat, Maxine Waters, who later voted against the bill, criticized her Republican peers for “setting an unacceptable and dangerous precedent” with the STABLE Act.
She said President Donald Trump could use the bill to allow his family’s stablecoin to be used in government payments, and argued the bill validates Trump “and his insiders’ efforts to write rules of the road that will enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else.”
In late March, the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial crypto venture launched a stablecoin, World Liberty Financial USD (USD1). Meanwhile, the US Housing Department, which oversees social housing, was reportedly looking to experiment with using stablecoins for some of its functions.
Stablecoin GENIUS Act also weaves through Congress
Other stablecoin-related bills are also working their way through Congress, including the Republican-led Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins, or GENIUS Act, which lays out oversight and reserve rules for issuers.
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The US Senate Banking Committee voted through the GENIUS Act in an 18-6 vote on March 13, after Senator Bill Hagerty, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, updated it following consultation with the Committee’s Democrats.
Before the vote, Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said the updated GENIUS Act made “significant improvements to a number of important provisions” in areas such as consumer protections and authorized stablecoin issuers.
Both the STABLE Act and GENIUS Act will now wait until debate time on the floor of the House and Senate, respectively, before they head for a floor vote.
Crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett reported on X that two unnamed crypto lobbyists said there is likely to be “a coordinated push behind the scenes over the next few weeks to get the two bills to mirror each other, as there are still some differences between them.”
Doing so would “avoid having to set up a so-called conference committee which is formed so members from both chambers can negotiate to create a final version of the bill everyone agrees on,” she added.
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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”.
The London MP resigned as a Treasury minister in January after being named in several corruption inquiries in Bangladesh.
In her first public comments since leaving government, Ms Siddiq said “there’s been allegations for months on end and no one has contacted me”.
Last month, the interim leader of Bangladesh told Sky News the MP had “wealth left behind” in the country “and should be made responsible”.
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.
Ms Hasina was forced to flee the country in August following weeks of deadly protests.
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.
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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.
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