Robert Halfon becomes latest minister to resign as James Heappey makes official exit from government
Education Minister Robert Halfon has resigned from government, confirming he will be the 63rd Conservative MP to stand down at the next election.
The MP for Harlow, who has been in parliament since 2010, said “political life, while fulfilling, has its ups and downs”, and he felt it was “time for me to step down”.
He will be replaced in the Department for Education by Luke Hall, the MP for Thornbury and Yate near Bristol.
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Quoting the wizard Gandalf from Lord of the Rings in his resignation letter to the prime minister, and having been a Tory candidate for almost 25 years, Mr Halfon said: “My time is over: it is no longer my task to set things to rights, nor to help folk to do so.
“And as for you, my dear friends, you will need no help… among the great you are, and I have no longer any fear at all for any of you.”
Rishi Sunak responded by saying he was “very sorry to hear” of his decision, but added: “I respect your reasons for doing so.”
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The announcement from Mr Halfon – who has also served as deputy chairman of the Conservative Party and chair of the education select committee – came on the same day Armed Forces minister James Heappey officially left his post in government.
He will be replaced by the former junior Foreign Office minister and MP for Aldershot in Hampshire, Leo Docherty, who previously served as Minister for Defence People and Veterans under Boris Johnson.
Earlier this month, a source close to the MP for the Wells constituency in Somerset said he had decided to leave parliament because of personal reasons, and his ministerial resignation was expected to coincide with Easter recess.
But the timing was significant as there had been growing disquiet among Conservative MPs and military insiders at a failure by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to announce new funding for the armed forces in his spring budget.
However, the source said said while “of course he thinks there should be more money”, it was not why Mr Heappey was resigning.
Confirming his departure on X, Mr Heappy said he “loved every minute” of his job, but added: “The work isn’t done.
“Ukraine needs our support now as much as ever. Perhaps even more so. Theirs is a fight for the future of Euro-Atlantic security and so we must continue to lead the world in the breadth [and] bravery of our support.”
In a letter to the now former minister, Mr Sunak thanked him for his “outstanding service and contribution to our party, parliament and country”.
As part of the mini-reshuffle, former education minister under Liz Truss, Jonathan Gullis, has been made a deputy chairman of the Tory party, along with MP for Guildford Angela Richardson.
Nus Ghani has been made minister for Europe, leaving her roles at the Department for Business and Trade and the Cabinet Office, being replaced by Havant MP Alan Mak.
And Kevin Hollinrake, who has overseen the Post Office during recent turbulence, has been promoted to minister of state for business.
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Meanwhile, Labour has promoted a number of its by-election winning MPs into frontbench positions.
Selby and Ainsty victor Keir Mather will join the shadow whips office, Gen Kitchen will go to the shadow Home Office, Tamworth MP Sarah Edwards will become part of the environment team and Kingswood’s Damien Egan will join the education team.
Batley and Spen MP Kim Leadbeater will also move roles from the whips to join the shadow health team.
The crypto lobby group, the DeFi Education Fund, has petitioned the Trump administration to end what it claimed was the “lawless prosecution” of open-source software developers, including Roman Storm, a creator of the crypto mixing service Tornado Cash.
In an April 28 letter to White House crypto czar David Sacks, the group urged President Donald Trump “to take immediate action to discontinue the Biden-era Department of Justice’s lawless campaign to criminalize open-source software development.”
The letter specifically mentioned the prosecution of Storm, who was charged in August 2023 with helping launder over $1 billion in crypto through Tornado Cash. His trial is still set for July, and his fellow charged co-founder, Roman Semenov, is at large and believed to be in Russia.
The DeFi Education Fund said that in Storm’s case, the Department of Justice is attempting to hold software developers criminally liable for how others use their code, which is “not only absurd in principle, but it sets a precedent that potentially chills all crypto development in the United States.”
The group also called for the recognition that the prosecution contradicts the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) guidance from Trump’s first term, which established that developers of self-custodial, peer-to-peer protocols are not money transmitters.
“This kind of legal environment does not just chill innovation — it freezes it,” they argued. The letter added that it also “empowers politically-motivated enforcement and puts every open-source developer at risk, regardless of industry.”
In January, a federal court in Texas ruled that the Treasury overstepped its authority by sanctioning Tornado Cash.
Stakes could not be higher
The group thanked Trump for his support of the industry and his stated goal to make America the “crypto capital of the planet.”
They added, however, that his goal can’t be realized if developers are prosecuted for building tools that enable the technology.
“We ask President Trump to protect American software developers, restore legal clarity, and end this unlawful DOJ overreach. The job’s not finished, and the stakes could not be higher.”
Related: Tornado Cash dev wants charges dropped after court said OFAC ‘overstepped’
Variant Fund chief legal officer Jake Chervinsky said the Justice Department’s case against Storm is “an outdated remnant of the Biden administration’s war on crypto.”
“There is no justification in law or policy for prosecuting software developers for launching non-custodial smart contract protocols,” he added.
At the time of writing, the petition had attracted 232 signatures from industry executives and developers, including Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang, and Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko, among others.
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Migrants convicted of sex offences in the UK or overseas will be unable to claim asylum under government plans to change the law to improve border security.
The Home Office announcement means foreign nationals who are added to the sex offenders register will forfeit their rights to protection under the Refugee Convention.
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As part of the 1951 UN treaty, countries are allowed to refuse asylum to terrorists, war criminals and individuals convicted of a “particularly serious crime” – which is currently defined in UK law as an offence carrying a sentence of 12 months or more.
The government now plans to extend that definition to include all individuals added to the Sex Offenders’ Register, regardless of the length of sentence, in an amendment to the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which is currently going through parliament. It’s understood they also hope to include those convicted of equivalent crimes overseas.
Those affected will still be able to appeal their removal from the UK in the courts under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
More than 10,000 people have now been detected crossing the Channel. Pic: PA
It is unclear how many asylum seekers will be affected, as the government has been unable to provide any projections or past data on the number of asylum seekers added to the Sex Offenders’ Register.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “Sex offenders who pose a risk to the community should not be allowed to benefit from refugee protections in the UK.
“We are strengthening the law to ensure these appalling crimes are taken seriously.”
Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls Minister Jess Philips said: “We are determined to achieve our mission of halving violence against women and girls in a decade.
“That’s exactly why we are taking action to ensure there are robust safeguards across the system, including by clamping down on foreign criminals who commit heinous crimes like sex offences.”
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The Home Office would like voters to see this as a substantial change. But that’s hard to demonstrate without providing any indication of the scale of the problem it seeks to solve.
Clearly, the government does not want to fan the flames of resentment towards asylum seekers by implying large numbers have been committing sex crimes.
But amid rising voter frustration about the government’s grip on the issue, and under pressure from Reform – this measure is about signalling it is prepared to take tough action.
Conservatives: ‘Too little, too late’
The Conservatives claim Labour are engaged in “pre-election posturing”.
Chris Philp MP, the shadow home secretary, said: “This is too little, too late from a Labour government that has scrapped our deterrent and overseen the worst year ever for small boat crossings – with a record 10,000 people crossing this year already.
“Foreign criminals pose a danger to British citizens and must be removed, but so often this is frustrated by spurious legal claims based on human rights claims, not asylum claims.”
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Has Labour tackled migration?
The Home Office has also announced plans to introduce a 24-week target for appeal hearings (known as “first-tier tribunals”) to be held for rejected asylum seekers living in taxpayer-supported accommodation, or for foreign national offenders.
The current average wait is 50 weeks. The idea is to cut the asylum backlog and save taxpayers money – Labour have committed to end the use of asylum hotels by the end of this parliament.
It’s unclear how exactly this will be achieved, although a number of additional court days have already been announced.
The government also plans to crack down on fake immigration lawyers who advise migrants on how to lodge fraudulent asylum claims, with the Immigration Advice Authority given new powers to issue fines of up to £15,000.
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.”
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.
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