There’s a small white building in the middle of a Birmingham park that has become the unlikely headquarters for a quiet resistance movement.
A few years ago, a group of locals took over the quaint Sons of Rest building in the middle of Handsworth Park so they could host their own “tea and social” afternoon.
“We all hated the isolation of lockdown during COVIDso we decided to come together in this building a few times a week,” says Surinder Guru, one of the volunteers.
Image: Surinder says the building has formed a community spirit
In the beginning, they’d bring their own teabags. Then one man decided to make some soup. Then they all decided to take turns making soup for everyone.
And that grew into a community kitchen for anyone who wants to come.
“It’s turning into a meeting place for different groups who don’t normally meet,” says Surinder.
“We get Indian people, white British men and women, white European men and women, we’ve got Afro-Caribbean people, children and older people.
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“It’s making use of a building that would otherwise have been sold off to God knows who.”
Image: This is where the resistance movement lies
Communities under threat
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But this community haven – and thousands like it – is under threat because the council here is in a financial mess.
Birmingham City Council, Europe’s biggest local authority, recently declared itself effectively bankrupt, issuing what is called a Section 114 order.
That means the council does not think it has enough money to maintain essential services next year.
A backlog of equal pay claims and a failed IT system has crippled its finances.
It is a bit like in Monopoly, when a player runs out of money, their only option is to start selling off their assets.
So every asset that the council owns is now under review and could be “disposed of” to help meet a forecasted £760m equal pay bill.
Landmarks that help make the city unique are among the properties under investigation.
Nothing is off the table – historic buildings, libraries, parks, entertainment venues, car parks and community centre are all at risk.
According to Locality, the organisation which represents nearly 2,000 small community groups across the country, about 6,000 public buildings and spaces are sold off by councils every year.
Tony Armstrong, CEO of Locality, said: “We’re calling on all parties to introduce a community right to buy, which would make it much easier for local people to take local buildings into community ownership.
“And we also want them to go further, passing more powers to communities so they can help create local jobs, services and opportunities.
Image: Landmarks that help make the city unique are among the properties under investigation
‘Keep your hands off our communities’
Surinder says she is angry that the city has been put into this situation.
“My message to the council is ‘keep your hands off our communities’.
“And that message is not just to the council but to central government too.
“The council needs to make better decisions but governments also need to fund councils properly.”
Councils have seen a stark reduction in the amount of money handed to them from central government over the last decade.
These grant payments were cut by 40% in real terms between 2009-10 and 2019-20, from £46.5bn to £28bn, according to the Institute for Government.
A spokesperson for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said they were supporting the city and its concerned communities.
“Birmingham City Council faces a unique financial situation following its failure to get a grip of the significant issues it faces, from its equal pay liability to the implementation of its IT system.
“That is why we are working closely with the Commissioner team, who were appointed at the Council last October, to protect local residents and tackle the serious financial and governance problems.
“Our £150m Community Ownership Fund is also supporting communities to take ownership of assets at risk of closure and we have already secured the future of four community assets in Birmingham with £996,000 of funding.”
But now, overspent councils elsewhere are desperately trying to make the sums add up in order to meet their legal duty to balance their budgets by next April.
That is leading to cuts to things like museums, leisure centres, bus subsidies and grants to local charities.
At the same time there is relentless pressure on statutory services such as social care, and temporary accommodation for homeless families.
Campaigners across Birmingham are now fighting to protect their communities from the selloff in a David and Goliath-type battle.
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‘Inquiry into Birmingham City Council’
Fighting to save landmarks
The Save Birmingham Campaign was launched in response to the council’s effective bankruptcy.
Save Birmingham organiser Jeevan Jones said since the launch over 1,000 residents have nominated nearly 200 places on the savebirmingham.org website, ranging from community and leisure centres, parks and open spaces, heritage landmarks and cultural venues.
It is the first scheme of its kind in the country designed to scupper a sell-off of beloved community facilities.
“Our campaign aims to protect community places, to ensure the residents of Birmingham don’t lose out due to problems they didn’t cause. Once community places are lost, they stay lost.
“The last thing we want is for people to lose access to these community places.”
The campaign aims to register under-threat council-owned properties and spaces as “assets of community value” in an attempt to slow down the sale to give locals a chance to see if they can take them over.
“Our hope is the Save Birmingham campaign can act as a blueprint for the dozens of councils facing severe financial problems through positive community-led solutions that avoid damaging fire sales,” said Mr Jones.
Image: ‘The council needs to make better decisions but governments also need to fund councils properly’ says Surinder
‘No council is immune’
The Local Government Association says councils face a funding gap of £4bn over the next year and need more support from central government.
Councillor Shaun Davies, who chairs the LGA, told Sky News: “No council is immune to the growing risk to their financial sustainability and many now face the prospect of being unable to meet their legal duty to set a balanced budget and having Section 114 reports issued.
“It is therefore unthinkable that the government has not provided desperately needed new funding for local services in 2024-25.
Although councils are working hard to reduce costs where possible, this means the local services our communities rely on every day are now exposed to further cuts.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.