Rishi Sunak leaves no doubt he’s staking premiership on Rwanda flights plan
The prime minister wouldn’t put a number on how many asylum seekers he intended to send to Rwanda to have their claims processed.
But Rishi Sunak‘s news conference on Monday left no doubt this is the policy on which he is staking his premiership.
He didn’t talk today about the odd flight getting off the ground. Instead, he talked about a regular rhythm of flights beginning in July, deporting perhaps thousands of migrants.
Politics live: Lords vote for amendment to government’s Rwanda bill again
He refused to give us a number of how many people he wanted to send to Rwanda but doubled down on his promises.
When I asked him whether passing his Safety of Rwanda bill was a moment of success, he immediately replied that “success is when the boats have been stopped, that is what the country expects”.
It seems a near-impossible task.
Boat crossings this year have risen 25% against 2023, with 6,265 people, and there is obvious scepticism as to whether flights to Rwanda would really deter asylum seekers from making the crossing.
There is also plenty of scepticism that the government won’t be hamstrung by legal challenges again.
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PM adamant Rwanda flights will happen
But Mr Sunak said he was “confident” the plan complied with all international obligations, hinting he would be prepared to ignore the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.
“If it ever comes to a choice between our national security – securing our borders – and membership of a foreign court, I’m of course always going to prioritise our national security,” the prime minister said.
There are still plenty of legal and political risks, but Mr Sunak was crystal clear: the flights will continue as long as the boats keep coming and he will deliver on this pledge to make the Rwanda scheme fully operational.
“The PM is on the front foot on this,” said one senior government figure. “He’s all over it and determined to deliver the policy”.
A group of migrants arriving in Dover on 26 March. Pic: PA
To that end, commercial flights have been organised, an airfield put on standby and 500 officials trained to escort migrants to Rwanda.
Around 2,200 detention spaces have been reserved for those the government plans to remove and 25 courtrooms reserved to deal with legal challenges to get the flights away in 10 to 12 weeks.
‘Doomed to fail’
But after all the false starts, will it really happen?
There are those on his own benches – Suella Braverman, Robert Jenrick and a couple of dozen of others – who voted against this bill and simply think it won’t work.
Lord Carlisle, the lawyer and crossbench peer, told me the prime minister “is doomed to fail”.
“The boats have not been stopped,” he said. “The number of people arriving on boats has increased, despite blanket publicity for this policy the government is trying to push through.
“The way you stop the boats is dealing with the criminal gangs and by the government increasing the administrators that will look at which asylum seekers and refugees are dealt with. It’s not rocket science.
“What they are doing at the moment is near to the realms of fantasy.”
But for the prime minister, still so far behind in the polls, what has he got to lose?
He’s staked his reputation on this policy and has no other option to try to make it a success. Tackling small boats will be the pledge he’s judged on when the general election comes.
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Talk of flights through the summer into autumn, as well as a mooted fiscal event later in the year, point to an election in the autumn (with two senior figures telling me in recent days December is now being talked up too).
But none of this comes in time for the more imminent ballot box test of next week’s local elections, which could not only put him back on his heels, but into freefall once more.
He clearly has the plan, whether he will have the political space to implement it is another matter
Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, marks their 50th birthday amid a year of rising institutional and geopolitical adoption of the world’s first cryptocurrency.
The identity of Nakamoto remains one of the biggest mysteries in crypto, with speculation ranging from cryptographers like Adam Back and Nick Szabo to broader theories involving government intelligence agencies.
While Nakamoto’s identity remains anonymous, the Bitcoin (BTC) creator is believed to have turned 50 on April 5 based on details shared in the past.
According to archived data from his P2P Foundation profile, Nakamoto once claimed to be a 37-year-old man living in Japan and listed his birthdate as April 5, 1975.
Source: Web.archive.org
Nakamoto’s anonymity has played a vital role in maintaining the decentralized nature of the Bitcoin network, which has no central authority or leadership.
The Bitcoin wallet associated with Nakamoto, which holds over 1 million BTC, has laid dormant for more than 16 years despite BTC rising from $0 to an all-time high above $109,000 in January.
Satoshi Nakamoto statue in Lugano, Switzerland. Source: Cointelegraph
Nakamoto’s 50th birthday comes nearly a month after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a Digital Asset Stockpile, marking the first major step toward integrating Bitcoin into the US financial system.
Related: Bitcoin at 16: From experiment to trillion-dollar asset
Nakamoto’s legacy: a “cornerstone of economic sovereignty”
“At 50, Nakamoto’s legacy is no longer just code; it’s a cornerstone of economic sovereignty,” according to Anndy Lian, author and intergovernmental blockchain expert.
“Bitcoin’s reserve status signals trust in its scarcity and resilience,” Lian told Cointelegraph, adding:
“What’s fascinating is the timing. Fifty feels symbolic — half a century of life, mirrored by Bitcoin’s journey from a white paper to a trillion-dollar asset. Nakamoto’s vision of trustless, peer-to-peer money has outgrown its cypherpunk roots, entering the halls of power.”
However, lingering questions about Nakamoto remain unanswered, including whether they still hold the keys to their wallet, which is “a fortune now tied to US policy,” Lian said.
Related: Bitcoin’s next catalyst: End of $36T US debt ceiling suspension
Is Satoshi Nakamoto wealthier than Bill Gates?
In February, Arkham Intelligence published findings that attribute 1.096 million BTC — then valued at more than $108 billion — to Nakamoto. That would place him above Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on the global wealth rankings, according to data shared by Coinbase director Conor Grogan.
Satoshi’s new addresses. Source: Conor Grogan
If accurate, this would make Nakamoto the world’s 16th richest person.
Despite the growing interest in Nakamoto’s identity and holdings, his early decision to remain anonymous and inactive has helped preserve Bitcoin’s decentralized ethos — a principle that continues to define the cryptocurrency to this day.
Magazine: 10 crypto theories that missed as badly as ‘Peter Todd is Satoshi’
The United States stock market lost more in value over the April 4 trading day than the entire cryptocurrency market is worth, as fears over US President Donald Trump’s tariffs continue to ramp up.
On April 4, the US stock market lost $3.25 trillion — around $570 billion more than the entire crypto market’s $2.68 trillion valuation at the time of publication.
Nasdaq 100 is now “in a bear market”
Among the Magnificent-7 stocks, Tesla (TSLA) led the losses on the day with a 10.42% drop, followed by Nvidia (NVDA) down 7.36% and Apple (AAPL) falling 7.29%, according to TradingView data.
The significant decline across the board signals that the Nasdaq 100 is now “in a bear market” after falling 6% across the trading day, trading resource account The Kobeissi Letter said in an April 4 X post. This is the largest daily decline since March 16, 2020.
“US stocks have now erased a massive -$11 TRILLION since February 19 with recession odds ABOVE 60%,” it added. The Kobessi Letter said Trump’s April 2 tariff announcement was “historic” and if the tariffs continue, a recession will be “impossible to avoid.”
Source: Anthony Scaramucci
On April 2, Trump signed an executive order establishing reciprocal tariffs on trading partners and a 10% baseline tariff on all imports from all countries.
Trump said the reciprocal tariffs will be roughly half the rate US trading partners impose on American goods.
Related: Bitcoin bulls defend $80K support as ‘World War 3 of trade wars’ crushes US stocks
Meanwhile, the crypto industry has pointed out that while the stock market continues to decline, Bitcoin (BTC) remains stronger than most expected.
Crypto trader Plan Markus pointed out in an April 4 X post that while the entire stock market “is tanking,” Bitcoin is holding.
Source: Jeff Dorman
Even some crypto skeptics have pointed out the contrast between Bitcoin’s performance and the US stock market during the recent period of macro uncertainty.
Stock market commentator Dividend Hero told his 203,200 X followers that he has “hated on Bitcoin in the past, but seeing it not tank while the stock market does is very interesting to me.”
Meanwhile, technical trader Urkel said Bitcoin “doesn’t appear to care one bit about tariff wars and markets tanking.” Bitcoin is trading at $83,749 at the time of publication, down 0.16% over the past seven days, according to CoinMarketCap data.
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