Kingswood and Wellingborough by-elections: Odds of Rishi Sunak repeating Tory 1997-style loss have now increased

Published

1 year ago

February 16, 2024

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Losing both the Kingswood and Wellingborough by-elections means the Conservatives have established a new record – the largest number of defeats it has suffered in a single parliament.

A net loss of nine seats is one more than the eight defeats in the mid-1990s as John Major led the party to one of its heaviest general election defeats.

The odds of Rishi Sunak repeating that have increased.

The defeat in Wellingborough is one of the worst in the Conservative Party‘s long history. Peter Bone’s majority of more than 18,000 votes swept aside, with Labour winning with a 6,000 majority of its own. The Conservative vote fell by 38 percentage points, more than enough to erase its 36% majority.

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Wellingborough rewrites the record books. The decline in vote share from the preceding general election – 37.6 points – is the largest since 1945 and shatters the previous record 32-point fall in Christchurch in 1993.

Wellingborough becomes the eighth-largest Conservative majority overturned since 1945.

Six of the top 10 by-elections in that list are contests held during the current parliament.

There was a 28.5-point swing away from the Conservatives, not quite beating the record 29.1-point swing to Labour in Dudley West established in 1994, but easily the largest this parliament.

Labour was understandably quick to celebrate these numbers, using the Con to Lab swing to suggest that if this had been a general election the Conservative party would be all but wiped out.

An exaggeration, but Labour’s almost 20-point increase in vote share ranks among the best, marginally smaller than the improvement shown in the Rutherglen & Hamilton West, Tamworth and Selby & Ainsty by-elections earlier in this parliament.

The party has six by-election net gains this parliament, the most Labour has ever made.

A significant fraction of the collapse in Conservative vote share is explained by the 13% of voters who supported Reform.

How many of these were Conservative defectors is difficult to say, but there is no doubting the importance of this performance in the context of an imminent general election.

National polls suggest Reform has the support of one in 10 voters, about the same number intending to vote for the Liberal Democrats. Given that, polling 13% in a constituency where a clear majority voted to leave the EU in 2016, is about a par result but not an indication that the party can win seats.

However, Reform is a real threat, the catalyst for far greater Conservative seat losses than would otherwise be the case.

In Kingswood there was a small 21-point drop in the Conservative vote, but there too that was not mirrored by Labour’s increase of 12 points.

The difference is again explained by the 10% of voters who supported Reform. Here, as with Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth beforehand, the combined votes of the Conservative and Reform exceeded those cast for the Labour winner.

The far smaller 16.4-point swing to Labour is in line with the swing suggested by current national polls, rather than repeating the scale of the Wellingborough victory.

This won’t worry Labour, of course, with a general election now less than a year away, a swing of this scale would give Sir Keir Starmer a Commons majority of 110 seats.

In both seats there was a sharp fall in turnout, falling by 26 points in Wellingborough but one of 34 points in Kingswood.

It would be wrong to say this came as a result of holding by-elections in winter weather because it reflects the indifference generally shown by electors throughout this parliament.

With the Rochdale by-election just two weeks away (the first by-election to be held on 29 February since 1944) it is prudent not to extrapolate too much from these two results. Labour has disowned its candidate there, although his name remains on the ballot paper.

If, as seems likely, Labour loses the seat, the Conservatives will exploit that to the full. Whether they succeed in halting Labour’s progress towards the next general election remains to be seen.

Politics

Home secretary denies ‘watering down’ grooming gangs response following backlash

Published

4 hours ago

April 10, 2025

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Home secretary denies 'watering down' grooming gangs response following backlash

The home secretary has denied the government is watering down its response to child grooming gangs after it was accused of dropping plans for local inquiries.

Yvette Cooper announced at the beginning of the year that “victim-centred, locally-led inquiries” would take place in five areas after the issue caught the attention of tech billionaire Elon Musk.

But this week, safeguarding minister Jess Phillips did not provide an update on the reviews and instead said local authorities would be able to access a £5m fund to support any work they wanted to carry out.

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Her statement led to accusations that the government was diluting the importance of the local inquiries by giving councils the choice over how to spend the money.

Asked by Anna Jones on Sky News whether the government was “watering down” its response, Ms Cooper said: “No, completely the opposite.

“What we’re doing is increasing the action we’re taking on this vile crime.”

The home secretary pointed to the rapid audit that is being carried out by Baroness Louise Casey, which will bring together the data gathered so far on grooming gangs and consider the lessons that should be learned at a national level.

She added: “Most important of all, what we’re doing is we’re increasing the police investigations, because these are dangerous perpetrators and again, they should be behind bars.”

Demands for a national inquiry into the scandal – in which girls as young as 11 were groomed and raped across a number of towns and cities in England over a decade ago – grew louder this year after Mr Musk accused Labour of failing to act on the issue on his social media platform X.

The government refused to hold a national inquiry, citing the work carried out by Professor Alexis Jay, who led the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse that looked into abuse by organised groups following multiple convictions of sexual offences against children across the UK between 2010-2014.

However, it did commit to holding local inquiries in five areas backed by £5m in funding and advised by Tom Crowther KC.

‘Political mess’

But ministers are facing a backlash following Ms Phillips’ statement in the Commons on Tuesday – made an hour before parliament rose for Easter recess – in which she said the government would take a “flexible approach” by allowing five councils to launch victims’ panels or locally led audits.

Labour MPs angry with government decision grooming gangs

Mhari Aurora

Political correspondent

@MhariAurora

With about an hour until the House of Commons rose for Easter recess, the government announced it was taking a more “flexible” approach to the local grooming gang inquiries.

Safeguarding minister Jess Philips argued this was based on experience from certain affected areas, and that the government is funding new police investigations to re-open historic cases.

Sky News presenter and former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission Trevor Philips called the move “utterly shameful” and claimed it was a political decision.

One Labour MP told Sky News: “Some people are very angry. I despair. I don’t disagree with many of our decisions but we just play to Reform – someone somewhere needs sacking.”

The government insists party political misinformation is fanning the flames of frustration in Labour, and that they not watering down the inquiries – on the contrary, they say are increasing the action being taken – , but while many Labour MPs have one eye on Reform in the rearview mirror, any accusations of being soft on grooming gangs only provides political ammunition to their adversaries.

One Labour MP told Sky News the issue had turned into a “political mess” and that they were being called “grooming sympathisers”.

On the update from Ms Phillips on Tuesday, they said it might have been the “right thing to do” but that it was “horrible politically”.

“We are all getting so much abuse. It’s just political naivety in the extreme.”

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said yesterday that she was “absolutely astonished that Labour has dropped what it said it would do in January”.

“They are clearly uncomfortable with having inquiries that are looking into this issue,”she said.

“They said that they’ll have a pot of money for councils to bid in, but why would a council bid for money to investigate itself?

“We need something that is national. We need a statutory inquiry so we can compel witnesses, and I’m going to make sure that we force another vote.”

‘We will leave no stone unturned’

Ms Phillips later defended her decision, saying there was “far too much party political misinformation about the action that is being taken when everyone should be trying to support victims and survivors”.

“We are funding new police investigations to re-open historic cases, providing national support for locally led inquiries and action, and Louise Casey… is currently reviewing the nature, scale and ethnicity of grooming gangs offending across the country.

“We will not hesitate to go further, unlike the previous government, who showed no interest in this issue over 14 years and did nothing to progress the recommendations from the seven year national inquiry when they had the chance.

“We will leave no stone unturned in pursuit of justice for victims and will be unrelenting in our crackdown on sick predators and perpetrators who prey on vulnerable children.”

Politics

OpenSea urges SEC to exclude NFT marketplaces from regulator’s remit

Published

5 hours ago

April 10, 2025

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OpenSea urges SEC to exclude NFT marketplaces from regulator’s remit

Non-fungible token marketplace OpenSea has urged the US Securities and Exchange Commission to exclude NFT marketplaces from regulation under federal securities laws.

The SEC needs to “clearly state that NFT marketplaces like OpenSea do not qualify as exchanges under federal securities laws,” OpenSea general counsel Adele Faure and deputy general counsel Laura Brookover said in an April 9 letter to Commissioner Hester Peirce, who leads the agency’s Crypto Task Force.

Faure and Brookover argued that NFT marketplaces don’t meet the legal definition of an exchange under US securities laws as they don’t execute transactions, act as intermediaries or bring together multiple sellers for the same asset.

“The Commission’s past enforcement agenda has created uncertainty. We therefore urge the Commission to remove this uncertainty and protect the ability of US technology companies to lead in this space,” Faure and Brookover wrote.

Marketplace, SEC, United States, OpenSea — *OpenSea’s legal team has asked the SEC to issue informal guidance on NFT Marketplaces. Source:* *SEC*

“In preparing this guidance, the Crypto Task Force should specifically address the application of exchange regulations to marketplaces for non-fungible assets, similar to the recent staff statements on memecoins and stablecoins,” Faure and Brookover added.

Under a notice published on April 4, the SEC said stablecoins that meet specific criteria are considered “non-securities” and are exempt from transaction reporting requirements.

Meanwhile, the SEC’s division of corporation finance said in a Feb. 27 staff statement that memecoins are not securities under the federal securities laws but are more akin to collectibles.

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Faure and Brookover argued the Crypto Task Force should also exempt NFT marketplaces like OpenSea from having to register as a broker, arguing they don’t give investment advice, execute transactions, or custody customer assets.

“We ask the SEC to clear the existing industry confusion on this issue by publishing informal guidance. In the longer term, we invite the Commission to exempt NFT marketplaces like OpenSea from proposed broker regulation,” they said.

Under the Trump administration, the SEC has slowly been walking back its hardline stance toward crypto forged under former Chair Gary Gensler.

The regulator has dismissed a number of enforcement actions it previously launched against crypto firms and has dropped probes into crypto companies over alleged securities law violations, including one into OpenSea.

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SafeMoon boss cites DOJ’s nixed crypto unit in latest bid to toss suit

Published

6 hours ago

April 10, 2025

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SafeMoon boss cites DOJ’s nixed crypto unit in latest bid to toss suit

Braden John Karony, the CEO of crypto firm SafeMoon, has cited the US Department of Justice’s directive to no longer pursue some crypto charges in an effort to get the case against him and his firm dismissed.

In an April 9 letter to New York federal court judge Eric Komitee, Karony’s attorney, Nicholas Smith, said the court should consider an April 7 memo from US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche that disbanded the DOJ’s crypto unit.

“The Department of Justice is not a digital assets regulator,” Blanche said in the memo, which added the DOJ “will no longer pursue litigation or enforcement actions that have the effect of superimposing regulatory frameworks on digital assets.”

Blanche also directed prosecutors not to charge violations of securities and commodities laws when the case would require the DOJ to determine if a digital asset is a security or commodity when charges such as wire fraud are available.

In the footnote of the letter, Karony’s counsel wrote an exemption to the DOJ’s new directive would be if the parties have an interest in defending that a crypto asset is a security, but added that “Karony does not have such an interest.”

The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission filed simultaneous charges of securities violations, wire fraud, and money laundering against Karony and other SafeMoon executives in November 2023.

The government alleged Karony, SafeMoon creator Kyle Nagy and chief technology officer Thomas Smith withdrew assets worth $200 million from the project and misappropriated investor funds.

Another attempt to nix the case

The letter is Karony’s latest attempt to get the case thrown out. In February, he asked that his trial, scheduled to begin on March 31, be delayed as he argued President Donald Trump’s proposed crypto policies could potentially affect the case.

Later in February, Smith changed his plea to guilty and said he took part in the alleged $200 million crypto fraud scheme. Nagy is at large and is believed to be in Russia.

SafeMoon filed for bankruptcy in December 2023, a month after it was hit with twin cases from the SEC and DOJ. It was also hacked in March 2023, with the hacker agreeing to return 80% of the funds.

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