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Isaac Levido, the man in charge of the Conservative general election campaign, did not hold back.

“Let me be clear,” he briefed Tory MPs at a closed-door meeting last Monday, “divided parties fail”. A fat lot of good that did the prime minister.

The next day 60 Conservative MPs voted, fruitlessly, for an amendment in defiance of the government’s bill to keep the proposed Rwanda removal scheme broadly compliant with the law.

Politics latest: Tax cuts hint dropped by Rishi Sunak

The rebels included former home secretary Suella Braverman, her deputy Robert Jenrick and three resigners from payroll jobs, including Lee Anderson, the loud-mouthed party deputy chairman.

The revolt shrunk at the substantive “third reading” on Wednesday.

More than 40 of them caucused before the vote and pulled back from bringing down the bill, and probably themselves and the government with it. Only 11 rebelled.

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Still, it was a stretch for the prime minister to boast “the Conservative Party has come together” at a specially convened news conference the following day.

Sources informed Sky’s political editor Beth Rigby that several “letters had gone in” from Tory MPs demanding a vote of no confidence in Sunak.

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What next for Rwanda bill?

Such behaviour prompts the question: “Do the Conservatives have a death wish as a party of government?” To put it another way: “Do they sincerely want to win the next election?”

The public notices when a party is divided. The latest figures for December are Conservatives divided 70%, united 8%.

The polling company YouGov runs a survey tracking that issue for the Conservatives. The jaws of disillusionment sprung wide in January 2022, the height of the “partygate” revelations, and have stayed gaping wide ever since.

Labour’s large lead in the opinion polls has also been in place for the past two years.

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Two YouGov polls in the past week suggest that, if anything, it is getting bigger.

A large survey in key constituencies, commissioned by a newly formed right-wing faction calling itself the Conservative Britain Alliance, plotted the party on course to lose 196 seats, down to just 169 MPs to Labour’s 385.

Next the regular monthly poll for The Times, conducted this week, gave Labour an increased lead of 27 points in voting intention, 47% to 20%, with Nigel Farage’s Reform in third place on 12%.

In such dire circumstances, the prime minister at least is now sticking to Isaac Levido’s advice and claiming that the Conservatives are united.

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Sunak warns Lords over Rwanda Bill

He is only managing to keep them together by constantly shifting closer to the position of the rebels on the right. He has declined to punish, or remove the party whip, from those who voted against the government on the Rwanda bill.

Instead, Sunak confirmed this week that he will order civil servants to ignore last-minute, so-called “pyjama orders” from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) under Rule 39, to halt deportations.

He and his ministers have adopted the nativist rhetoric of describing the ECHR as a “foreign court”. The UK has been a founder member of the international court since 1959 and a Briton sits as one of its judges. It is not an EU institution.

Some of the rebels are veterans of the post-referendum Brexit deliberations which brought down Theresa May. Whatever moves she made in their direction were never enough.

Others, like Lee Anderson, were elected in 2019 on Boris Johnson’s coattails. Bathetically Anderson abstained in the final vote because he couldn’t stand the mockery from Labour when he entered the “nay” voting lobby.

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Boat carrying migrants seen crossing the Channel

That was a momentary weakness. The rebels have no interest in compromise and are already pressing for the UK to withdraw from the ECHR come what may, placing this nation alongside Russia and Belarus in Europe.

The prime minister claims that his Rwanda plan is the “will of the people”. It was not in the Conservative Party’s manifesto in 2019, although Boris Johnson subsequently floated the idea.

A majority of the general public, 53%, say it wouldn’t “be effective”. 40% want it abandoned, compared to 37% who say press ahead.

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Tory MP on why he voted for Rwanda

The cross-Channel migrants are a dramatic manifestation of people coming into the UK but are only a fraction of the record net total, over 600,000 a year, currently coming into the UK.

By common admission the number who would be sent to Rwanda, if the scheme were established, is smaller still. Sunak’s “Stop the Boats” policy is almost a diversion from the complex issues raised by mass migration.

Sunak is drawing attention to Labour saying it would scrap the Rwanda scheme “even if it was working”. He is continuing to tell voters that Labour has no plan, whatever policy they develop. As yet this does not seem to be damaging either Starmer or his party.

But 46% of Conservatives voters in 2019 said the Rwanda scheme would be effective, even more of them, 63%, want the government to continue with the policy.

In truth, Sunak appears more concerned with keeping the majority of his electoral base together than delivering “the will of the people”.

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Immigration is a major concern for some voters, but all categories and classes say the economy and cost of living matter more to them.

Here again, Conservative MPs are divided and feuding among themselves, with constant demands that the prime minister and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt go further with tax cuts than they feel the country can afford.

The Budget on 6 March will be a test of whether they resist or succumb to this pressure.

Read more:
PM ‘clear’ he’ll ignore international law to deport asylum seekers
Sunak challenges Lords to pass bill – what happens next?

Many Tory MPs think their “narrow path” to election victory is all but disappearing. As such winning has ceased to be a priority. They are more interested in what happens to their party and their own careers after a defeat.

At least 54 of them have given up and are retiring. Those shouting loudest about the threat from Reform want to drive party policy in Farage’s direction.

Farage appears to be more popular than Sunak with the ageing party membership who will choose the next Conservative leader but he is not eligible to stand.

Braverman, Jenrick, Badenoch and others are already positioning themselves for the vacancy which they think defeat will create.

Those on the other, One Nation, side of the party, and who managed to survive the Johnson era purges, are loyal but out of sympathy with the direction in which it is moving. They do not expect to win the next election.

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MP makes Rwanda gaffe during Commons debate

Some feel that the Conservatives will need to elect another extremist as leader, and lose again, before they can “get their party back ” – as Labour’s Neil Kinnock once put it.

Interestingly, the new roster of Conservative MPs is likely to be more moderate, given the preponderance of centrist new candidates now being selected, coupled with the likely defeat of many “red wall” Tories.

Sunak is hoping to stay in power at least until the autumn. Before then the Conservatives face parliamentary by-elections in Wellingborough and Kingswood and probably Blackpool North.

All will be tough to hold on to the party’s recent electoral form. Then there are the local elections in London and elsewhere. Such tests are as likely to divide as unite his party behind him.

Something may turn up. Labour needs a record swing to form a majority government and nobody, least of all Keir Starmer and his team, expect they will do as well on election day as in current opinion polls.

Still, as things stand, Issac Levido’s warning and the Conservatives’ dismissive reaction to it, may well be written into a chronicle of a political death foretold.

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US senators press for answers on Trump’s crypto interests

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<div>US senators press for answers on Trump's crypto interests</div>

<div>US senators press for answers on Trump's crypto interests</div>

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren has called on government officials to address questions related to US President Donald Trump’s memecoin and his media company.

In an April 25 letter to Jamieson Greer, acting director of the US Office of Government Ethics (OGE), Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts and California Democratic Senator Adam Schiff requested that officials address concerns about Trump’s memecoin after the president announced a dinner and White House tour for some of the individuals who held the most TRUMP tokens. The two senators requested that Greer provide information on safeguards and guidelines related to whether foreign actors and others could buy political influence with the president, potentially impacting his policy positions and federal pardons.

“President Trump’s announcement promises exclusive access to the presidency in exchange for significant investment in one of the President’s business ventures,” wrote the two senators.

“In promising such access, this proposition may implicate several federal ethics laws and constitutional prohibitions, including the federal bribery statute and emoluments clauses of the US Constitution. It also raises the troubling prospect that foreign actors are using the memecoin as a vector to buy influence with President Trump and his associates without needing to disclose their identities publicly.”

Investments, SEC, United States, Donald Trump, Corruption
April 25 letter from Sens. Warren and Schiff to OGE. Source: Sen. Schiff

The letter was sent the same day Warren reportedly expressed similar concerns about Trump’s potential conflicts of interest with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). According to an April 25 Reuters report, the Massachusetts senator urged SEC Chair Paul Atkins to ensure that oversight of Trump’s media company was “free from undue political interference and influence from the President and his administration.”

Related: Trump’s WLFI crypto investments aren’t paying off

Though ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, Warren does not have the authority to direct Congress’s agenda with Democrats in the minority. Two Democrats in the Senate and House of Representatives have already called for Trump’s impeachment over his memecoin dinner.

Warren added:

“The American people deserve the unwavering assurance that access to the presidency is not being offered for sale to the highest bidder in exchange for the President’s own financial gain.”

At the time of publication, it was unclear who among the top TRUMP memecoin holders would attend the dinner, scheduled to be held on May 22 at Trump’s golf club in Washington, DC. Speculation and analysis of users suggested that Trump supporters, including Tron founder Justin Sun, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and others, could attend, though none had been confirmed as of April 28.

Magazine: Trump’s crypto ventures raise conflict of interest, insider trading questions

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Polymarket bets on Mark Carney win as Canadians head to the polls

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Polymarket bets on Mark Carney win as Canadians head to the polls

Polymarket bets on Mark Carney win as Canadians head to the polls

Crypto users betting on the outcome of the snap election to determine the next Prime Minister of Canada appear to be favoring a Liberal Party victory as residents head to cast their votes.

As of April 28, cryptocurrency betting platform Polymarket gave current Canadian Prime Minister and Liberal Party candidate Mark Carney a 79% chance of defeating Conservative Party candidate Pierre Poilievre in the race for the country’s next PM. Data from the platform showed users had poured more than $75 million into bets surrounding the race, predicting a Poilievre or Carney victory.

Canada, Betting, Voting, Elections
Polymarket chances favor the Liberal Party’s Mark Carney over the Conservative Party’s Pierre Poilievre to be the next Canadian Prime Minister. Source: Polymarket

The odds suggested by the platform, as well as those from many polls, show a nearly complete reversal of fortunes between the two candidates after former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resigned in January. Trudeau and, by association, many in the Liberal Party, faced criticism over the handling of Canada’s housing crisis and questions about how he would face US President Donald Trump’s then-proposed tariffs.

Following Trudeau’s resignation, Trump stepped up rhetoric disparaging Canada, repeatedly referring to the country as the US’s “51st state” and Trudeau as its “governor.” The US President also imposed a 25% tariff on goods imported from Canada in March. The policies seem to have led to increasing anti-Trump sentiment in Canada, with many residents booing the US national anthem at hockey games and making comparisons between the president and Poilievre.

This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.

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Small boat crossings pass 10,000 at earliest point in year since records began, Sky News understands

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Small boat crossings pass 10,000 at earliest point in year since records began, Sky News understands

Small boat crossings have passed 10,000 in 2025 at the earliest point in a year since records began, Sky News understands.

Analysis of previous Home Office numbers and footage of people arriving today show the number of people crossing the Channel continuing to rise.

The issue has become a lodestone for political parties across the spectrum, with Rishi Sunak’s pledge to “Stop The Boats” falling well short.

Politics latest: PM warns of Tory-Reform pact ‘disaster’

Sir Keir Starmer promised to clear the backlog of asylum applications and “Smash The Gangs” of people smugglers upstream, but critics say he has failed to do this almost a year into his stint in Number Ten.

Reform’s Nigel Farage has made the issue key to his party’s pitch to voters.

The 10,000 figure is understood to have been passed on 28 April. Official figures only go until 27 April at the time of writing, with 9,885 people detected crossing the Channel by the UK government at this point

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This compares to 7,167 by the same date in 2024, 5,745 in 2023, 5,352 in 2022, and 1,796 in 2021. Data only started to get collected in 2018, and for the first three years fewer than 1,000 people were observed crossing the Channel before 28 April.

Fine weather conditions are known to lead to an increase in people crossing the Channel, with some efforts earlier this year stymied by heavy winds.

Sir Keir scrapped the Conservative’s Rwanda deportation plan when entering office. In March, the prime minister said his government had “returned” 24,000 people who had no right to be in the UK.

Read more:
Why more people cross on the weekend?
Gusty conditions halt small boat crossings
Starmer: 24,000 people returned

Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said: “Britain’s borders are being torn apart under Labour. This year is already the worst on record for small boat crossings after over 10,000 illegal immigrants arrived in Britain, but Labour just sit on their hands.

“Labour scrapped our deterrent before it even started, flung open the door to extremists and criminals, and handed the bill to hardworking taxpayers.

“Under new Conservative leadership, we are serious about tackling this crisis with deliverable reforms, but Labour continue to block these at every turn. Labour’s open-door chaos is a betrayal of the British people, and we will not let them get away with it.”

Mr Philp was part of previous Conservative governments, which also failed to reduce crossings.

Speaking to broadcasters, Mr Farage said: “If this carries on at this rate, by the end of this Labour government another quarter of a million people will have come into this country, many of whom frankly don’t fit our culture or cost us a fortune.”

He claimed that Reform is “the only party” saying that “unless you deport those that come illegally, they will just continue to come”.

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A Home Office spokesperson said: “We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security.

“The people-smuggling gangs do not care if the vulnerable people they exploit live or die, as long as they pay and we will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice.

“That is why this government has put together a serious plan to take down these networks at every stage.

“Through international intelligence sharing under our Border Security Command, enhanced enforcement operations in Northern France and tougher legislation in the Border Security and Asylum Bill, we are strengthening international partnerships and boosting our ability to identify, disrupt, and dismantle criminal gangs whilst strengthening the security of our borders.”

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