Anderson defects to Reform UK – as Beth Rigby challenges three-word answer to question
Former Conservative deputy chair Lee Anderson has defected to Reform UK, becoming the party’s first MP in the Commons.
Mr Anderson, who secured the seat of Ashfield in 2019, was kicked out of the parliamentary Conservative Party for refusing to apologise after alleging that London mayor Sadiq Khan was controlled by “Islamists”.
And while some of his colleagues had called for his reinstatement, others accused him of Islamophobia.
Making the announcement of his defection at an event in central London, Mr Anderson told journalists he had done “a lot of soul searching” on his “political journey”, but concluded: “Somebody has to make a stand.”
“It is no secret that I’ve been talking to my friends in Reform for a while,” added the MP. “And Reform UK has offered me the chance to speak out in parliament on behalf of millions of people up and down the country who feel that they’re not being listened to.
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Lee Anderson: ‘I want my country back’
“People will say that I’ve took a gamble. And I’m prepared to gamble on myself, as I know from my mailbag how many people in this country support Reform UK and what they have to say.
“And like millions of people up and down the country, all I want is my country back.”
Asked by Sky News’s political editor, Beth Rigby, what his message would be to his former Tory colleagues who feared the defection could damage their chances at the next election, he said: “Country, constituency, then party.”
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Mr Anderson was welcomed to Reform UK by its leader, Richard Tice, who said his first MP would be a “champion of the red wall”, who would “tell it as it is, with no nonsense, no waffle”.
Refuting claims his own views were controversial, Mr Anderson added: “They are opinions which are shared by millions of people up and down the country.
“It’s not controversial to be concerned about illegal immigration. It’s not controversial to be concerned about legal migration.
“It’s not controversial to be, you know, worried, concerned about the Metropolitan Police and the failing London mayor and the hate marchers, the street crime and the shoplifters literally getting away with ruining businesses on a daily basis.
“It’s not controversial to fight back in a culture war, a culture war that is sweeping our nation.”
Defecting to another party does not trigger a by-election automatically, but an MP can choose to hold one – as both Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless did when they left the Tories to join UKIP.
However, Mr Anderson said he would not call a vote, claiming it would be “pretty reckless” so close to a general election and would “cost a fortune”.
Attacking his now former party, Mr Anderson accused the Conservatives of “stifling free speech”, adding: “When I find myself suspended for speaking my mind, and by the way speaking up on behalf of millions of people up and down the country who agree with me, that for me is unpalatable. It’s a shocker, if I’m honest.”
And in a statement on X, he also claimed to have been “cast aside” by the Tories and “unsupported”.
A Conservative Party spokesperson said they “regret” the decision taken by Mr Anderson, adding: “Voting for Reform can’t deliver anything apart from a Keir Starmer-led Labour government that would take us back to square one – which means higher taxes, higher energy costs, no action on Channel crossings, and uncontrolled immigration.”
But while one of the right-wing factions within the Tories, the New Conservatives, released their own statement agreeing with that sentiment, they placed the blame of the MP’s exit at the door of their own party.
“We have failed to hold together the coalition of voters who gave us an 80 seat majority in 2019,” it said. “Those voters – in our traditional heartlands and in the red wall seats like Ashfield – backed us because we offered an optimistic, patriotic, no-nonsense Conservatism.
“They voted for lower immigration, for a better NHS, for a rebalanced economy, and for pride in our country.
“Our poll numbers show what the public think of our record since 2019. We cannot pretend any longer that ‘the plan is working’. We need to change course urgently.”
Listen to Beth Rigby, Jess Phillips and Ruth Davidson as they unravel the spin in a new weekly podcast from Sky News
Labour MP and national campaign co-ordinator Pat McFadden accused the Conservatives of “falling apart”, adding: “What does it say about Rishi Sunak’s judgement that he promoted Lee Anderson in the first place?
“The truth is that the prime minister is too weak to lead a party too extreme to be led, and if the Tories got another five years it would all just get worse.”
The Liberal Democrats also said Mr Anderson’s defection left Mr Sunak’s authority in “tatters”, with deputy leader Daisy Cooper adding: “This is a prime minister that cannot govern his own party, let alone the country.
“Even now Sunak is too weak to rule out Nigel Farage joining the Conservative Party. It just shows that there is now hardly a cigarette paper between the Conservative Party and Reform.”
Mr Anderson began his political career in the Labour Party as a councillor and member of staff for Ashfield’s then MP Gloria De Piero.
But after being suspended by the local organisation, he chose to join the Conservatives and became their candidate for the 2019 election, winning the seat with a majority of more than 5,000.
The MP became a controversial voice on the backbenches with his views on immigration and the so-called culture wars, but gained a lot of support from the right of his party and was made deputy chair by Mr Sunak.
However, he stood down from the role in January to vote against the government’s Rwanda deportation plan, which he believed needed toughening up.
Mr Anderson’s latest defection will come as a blow to Mr Sunak, and a boost to Reform UK – which is currently polling above the Liberal Democrats.
The new trade tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump may place added pressure on the Bitcoin mining ecosystem both domestically and globally, according to one industry executive.
While the US is home to Bitcoin (BTC) mining manufacturing firms such as Auradine, it’s still “not possible to make the whole supply chain, including materials, US-based,” Kristian Csepcsar, chief marketing officer at BTC mining tech provider Braiins, told Cointelegraph.
On April 2, Trump announced sweeping tariffs, imposing a 10% tariff on all countries that export to the US and introducing “reciprocal” levies targeting America’s key trading partners.
Community members have debated the potential effects of the tariffs on Bitcoin, with some saying their impact has been overstated, while others see them as a significant threat.
Tariffs compound existing mining challenges
Csepcsar said the mining industry is already experiencing tough times, pointing to key indicators like the BTC hashprice.
Hashprice — a measure of a miner’s daily revenue per unit of hash power spent to mine BTC blocks — has been on the decline since 2022 and dropped to all-time lows of $50 for the first time in 2024.
According to data from Bitbo, the BTC hashprice was still hovering around all-time low levels of $53 on March 30.
Bitcoin hashprice since late 2013. Source: Bitbo
“Hashprice is the key metric miners follow to understand their bottom line. It is how many dollars one terahash makes a day. A key profitability metric, and it is at all-time lows, ever,” Csepcsar said.
He added that mining equipment tariffs were already increasing under the Biden administration in 2024, and cited comments from Summer Meng, general manager at Chinese crypto mining supplier Bitmars.
Source: Summer Meng
“But they keep getting stricter under Trump,” Csepcsar added, referring to companies such as the China-based Bitmain — the world’s largest ASIC manufacturer — which is subject to the new tariffs.
Trump’s latest measures include a 34% additional tariff on top of an existing 20% levy for Chinese mining imports. In response, China reportedly imposed its own retaliatory tariffs on April 4.
BTC mining firms to “lose in the short term”
Csepcsar also noted that cutting-edge chips for crypto mining are currently massively produced in countries like Taiwan and South Korea, which were hit by new 32% and 25% tariffs, respectively.
“It will take a decade for the US to catch up with cutting-edge chip manufacturing. So again, companies, including American ones, lose in the short term,” he said.
Source: jmhorp
Csepcsar also observed that some countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States region, including Russia and Kazakhstan, have been beefing up mining efforts and could potentially overtake the US in hashrate dominance.
Related: Bitcoin mining using coal energy down 43% since 2011 — Report
“If we continue to see trade war, these regions with low tariffs and more favorable mining conditions can see a major boom,” Csepcsar warned.
As the newly announced tariffs potentially hurt Bitcoin mining both globally and in the US, it may become more difficult for Trump to keep his promise of making the US the global mining leader.
Trump’s stance on crypto has shifted multiple times over the years. As his administration embraces a more pro-crypto agenda, it remains to be seen how the latest economic policies will impact his long-term strategy for digital assets.
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Cryptocurrency exchange OKX is under renewed regulatory scrutiny in Europe after Maltese authorities issued a major fine for violations of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) laws.
Malta’s Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) fined Okcoin Europe — OKX’s Europe-based subsidiary — 1.1 million euros ($1.2 million) after detecting multiple AML failures on the platform in the past, the authority announced on April 3.
While admitting that OKX has significantly improved its AML policies in the past 18 months, the authority “could not ignore” its past compliance failures from 2023, “some of which were deemed to be serious and systematic,” the FIAU notice said.
OKX was among the first crypto exchanges to receive a license under Europe’s new Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation via its Malta hub in January 2025.
The news of the $1.2 million penalty in Malta came after Bloomberg in March reported that European Union regulators were probing OKX for laundering $100 million in funds from the Bybit hack.
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou previously claimed that OKX’s Web3 proxy allowed hackers to launder about $100 million, or 40,233 Ether (ETH), from the $1.5 billion hack that occurred in February.
This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.
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Authorities in the US state of Massachusetts continue targeting unlawful cryptocurrency market practices, with a local court fining crypto financial services firm CLS Global.
A federal court in Boston on April 2 sentenced CLS Global on criminal charges related to fraudulent manipulation of crypto trading volume, according to an announcement from the Massachusetts US Attorney’s Office.
In addition to a $428,059 fine, the court prohibited CLS Global from offering services in the US for a probation period of three years.
CLS Global, a crypto market maker registered in the United Arab Emirates, in January pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit market manipulation and one count of wire fraud.
CLS agreed to manipulate the FBI’s “trap token” NexFundAI
The charges against CLS Global followed an undercover law enforcement operation involving NexFundAI, a token created by the FBI as part of a sting operation in May 2024.
CLS Global was among at least three firms that took the FBI’s bait and agreed to provide “market maker services” for NexFundAI, including a fraudulent scheme to attract investors to purchase the token.
In October 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced fraud charges against CLS and its employee, Andrey Zhorzhes. The US securities regulator also filed complaints against two other NexFundAI manipulators, Hong Kong-linked ZM Quant Investment and Russia-linked Gotbit Consulting.
CLS Global’s profile
According to CLS Global CEO Filipp Veselov, the company was founded in 2017 to fill in a “huge gap in the market for high-quality market-making solutions and trading consulting.”
Prior to CLS, Veselov worked at the Russian cryptocurrency exchange platform Latoken, which is advertised as a “global digital asset exchange” and has about 370,000 followers on X.
The CLS team also includes chief revenue officer Pavel Singaevskii, who previously served as sales manager at Stex, a crypto platform that reportedly ceased operations without warning in 2023.
Source: CLS Global
According to CLS Global’s X page, the platform continues operating and has more than 110,000 followers at the time of publication.
How much wash trading is in crypto?
Wash trading is an illegal practice involving artificially inflating trading volume by repeatedly buying and selling the same asset, generating a misleading perception of demand.
According to a January 2025 report by the US blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, the crypto market has at least $2.6 billion in estimated wash traded volumes, or just about 2% of total daily crypto trading volumes, as reported by CoinGecko.
Estimated wash trade volume in crypto. Source: Chainalysis
Related: Russian Gotbit founder strikes $23M plea deal with US prosecutors
Some studies indicate that wash trading makes up a bigger share of the crypto market.
In 2022, the US National Bureau of Economic Research reported that illegal wash trading may account for as much as 70% of average trading volumes on unregulated exchanges.
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