Here, there are a number of traditional Labour strongholds, where voters are more likely to be white, working class and to have voted leave in the referendum.
Grimsby is one such example.
Image: The entrance to Grimsby Docks. Pic: PA
It turned Conservative for the first time since the end of the Second World War in 2019, with many people at the time feeling a cultural rift with the Labour Party.
This constituency has now been combined with Cleethorpes, where the Tories have been in power since 2010.
Since its formation in 1997, it’s been a bellwether seat, backing the largest party in Westminster.
It contains a rural conservative base as well as urban voters who in more recent years backed the promises of levelling up and Brexit offered by the Tories.
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The complex composition of this new constituency means it’s shaping up to be an interesting battleground.
Image: Cleethorpes is a seaside town that neighbours Grimsby. Pic: PA
Boris Johnson’s personal appeal, his party’s promise to “Get Brexit Done” and a promise to level up poorer parts of the country was a winning ticket for the Tories here.
Fast forward five years and disillusionment with the Conservatives is rife.
A cost of living crisis has eroded living standards and the promise of “levelling up” appears to have been forgotten.
Net migration to the UK is at a record high and the tax burden at a post-war high.
Tory party infighting, repeated leadership contests and a chaotic premiership under Liz Truss have eroded the public’s trust.
Support for the Conservatives may be fading but that won’t necessarily translate into strong support for Labour.
The Reform party is gaining ground in pro-leave constituencies, picking up their 2019 Tory voters.
The rebranded Brexit Party, led by Richard Tice and co-founded by Nigel Farage, has described itself as “the party of the working class”.
The party is polling at about 10%.
While this may not be enough to deliver Reform a single seat in parliament it could damage the Tories by splitting the vote and helping to deliver a Labour majority.
We saw this play out at the by-elections in Wellingborough and Kingswood.
What is Target Town?
Sky News’ Target Town series aims to tell the story of the upcoming election from the perspective of voters in the new constituency of Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes.
We’ll hear from locals all the way through to election night to understand the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead, and to discuss how the future could look depending on which political party is elected into power.
The constituency is high on Conservative and Labour target lists, lying right at the heart of the ‘Red Wall’ that the Tories smashed to take the election in 2019.
Once again they promise to be pivotal to both leaders’ ambitions.
However, Reform doesn’t have candidates everywhere yet, including in Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes. Instead, voter disillusionment and low turnout could be a bigger problem for the Tories than outright conversion to Labour.
Labour needs an 11.7 point swing to win in this new constituency and it has reason to be quietly confident.
The party has achieved larger swings at recent by-elections.
However, winning in places like Grimsby and Cleethorpes will be important if it is to secure the 12.7 point swing needed across the country to win a majority in parliament.
Labour lost people in Grimsby to Boris Johnson’s Tories in 2019.
Back then voters questioned the culture of the Labour party, whether it really stood for people like them, the working classes.
Labour will need to win them back but, in both Grimsby and Cleethorpes, it’s also contending with disillusionment with both main parties.
Sky News’ Target Town series aims to follow the build-up to the general election from a key constituency prized by both Conservatives and Labour – Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes.
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Brazil’s central bank completed rules that bring crypto companies under banking-style oversight, classifying stablecoin transactions and certain self-custody wallet transfers as foreign-exchange operations.
Under Resolutions 519, 520 and 521, published Monday, the Banco Central do Brasil (BCB) established operational standards and authorization procedures for what it calls Sociedades Prestadoras de Serviços de Ativos Virtuais (SPSAVs), a new category of licensed virtual-asset service providers operating in the country.
The framework extends existing rules on consumer protection, transparency and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) to crypto brokers, custodians and intermediaries.
The rules will take effect on Feb. 2, 2026, with mandatory reporting for capital-market and cross-border operations set to begin on May 4, 2026.
Stablecoins under foreign exchange rules
Under Resolution 521, a purchase, sale or exchange of fiat-pegged virtual assets, including international transfers or payments using such assets, will be treated as foreign-exchange (FX) operations.
With this classification, stablecoin activity will be subject to the same scrutiny as cross-border remittances or currency trades.
Licensed FX institutions and the new SPSAVs will be able to perform these operations, subject to documentation and value limitations. According to the BCB, transactions with unlicensed foreign counterparts will be capped at $100,000 per transfer.
The rules also cover transfers to and from self-custodied wallets when intermediated by a service provider. This means that providers must identify the wallet’s owner and maintain their processes that verify the origin and destination of the assets, even if the transfer itself isn’t cross-border.
This provision extends AML and transparency obligations to areas previously considered outside the scope of regulated finance.
While the rules don’t explicitly ban self-custody, they close a key reporting gap, forcing regulated exchanges and brokers to treat wallet interactions like formal FX operations.
BCB says the goal is to promote efficiency and legal certainty
In the announcement, the BCB said its goal is to ensure “greater efficiency and legal certainty,” prevent regulatory arbitrage and align crypto activities with the country’s balance-of-payments (BoP) statistics, which means making stablecoin transfers visible in official financial data.
The move follows months of public consultation and growing concern from the central bank on the dominance of stablecoin use in Brazil. On Feb. 7, BCB President Gabriel Galipolo said that around 90% of crypto activity in Brazil involved stablecoins, mainly used for payments.
Galipolo said the widespread use of stablecoins in payments presented regulatory and oversight challenges, particularly in areas such as money laundering and taxation.
Brazil’s central bank said the new framework aims to curb scams and illicit activity while providing legal clarity to crypto markets.
For crypto builders, this may raise compliance costs and reshape how local platforms interact with global liquidity. Smaller crypto players will be forced to compete with bigger institutions and meet more stringent banking-grade standards.
The rules will take effect in February 2026, but market participants are expected to start restructuring before then.
For Brazil, where crypto activity is second only to Argentina in Latin America, the new regulations signal a decisive shift from experimentation to integrated oversight.
The new rules show that crypto is welcome in the Brazilian financial ecosystem, but it will have to play by the same rules as fiat money.
Institutional investors are maintaining confidence in digital assets despite a sharp market correction in October, with most planning to expand their exposure in the months ahead, according to new research.
Over 61% of institutions plan to increase their cryptocurrency investments, while 55% hold a bullish short-term outlook, Swiss crypto banking group Sygnum said in a report released on Tuesday. The survey covered 1,000 institutional investors globally.
Roughly 73% of surveyed institutions are investing in crypto due to expectations of higher future returns, despite the industry still recovering from the record $20 billion market crash at the beginning of October.
However, investor sentiment continues facing uncertainty due to delays in key market catalysts, including the Market Structure bill and the approval of more altcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
While this uncertainty may carry over into 2026, Sygnum’s lead crypto asset ecosystem researcher, Lucas Schweiger, predicts a maturing digital asset market, where institutions seek diversified exposure with long-term growth expectations.
“The story of 2025 is one of measured risk, pending regulatory decisions and powerful demand catalysts against a backdrop of fiscal and geopolitical pressures,” he said, adding:
“But investors are now better informed. Discipline has tempered exuberance, but not conviction, in the market’s long-term growth trajectory.”
Despite October’s correction, “powerful demand catalysts” and institutional participation remained at an all-time high, with the growing ETF applications signaling more institutional demand, added Schweiger.
Crypto staking ETFs may be the next institutional catalyst
Crypto staking ETFs may present the next fundamental catalyst for institutional cryptocurrency demand.
Over 80% of the surveyed institutions expressed interest in crypto ETFs beyond Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), while 70% stated that they would start investing or increase their investments if these ETFs offered staking rewards.
Staking means locking your tokens into a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain network for a predetermined period to secure the network and earn passive income in exchange.
Meanwhile, investors are now anticipating the end of the government shutdown, which could bring “bulk approvals” for altcoin ETFs from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, catalyzing the “next wave of institutional flows,” according to Sygnum.