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“I am ruthless.”

That was Sir Keir Starmer’s account of himself and his decision to let Natalie Elphicke into the Labour Party on our trip to Dover on Friday to unveil his plan to stop the small boats.

Because for all the controversy her arrival on the Labour benches caused this week, for Sir Keir it was worth it.

Politics live:
Starmer sets out what he’ll do to tackle small boat crossings

It allowed him to take the fight on migration directly to the frontline, Dover, and stand next to the now Labour MP, Ms Elphicke, telling the cameras that Mr Sunak had “failed to keep the borders secure” and “can’t be trusted”.

As a piece of political theatre, it was ruthless.

And the timing was ruthless too, coming on the day the UK had come out of recession.

Rishi Sunak had wanted the television bulletins to lead on turning the economic corner and “sticking with the plan”.

That’s not what he got.

Instead, the Labour leader used the Elphicke defection to skewer Rishi Sunak on small boats on the very day the prime minister wanted to get back on the front foot about the economy.

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Starmer commits fully to stopping Rwanda plan in Sky News interview

Starmer goes further than before in attack on Rwanda ‘gimmick’

Sir Keir did qualify his ruthlessness as not an end in itself.

“I’m ruthless in trying to ensure we have a Labour government who can change this country for the better,” he explained to me.

“Not ruthless for my own ambition, not ruthlessness particularly for the Labour Party. I’m ruthless for the country.

“The only way we’ll bring about a change in this country is if we’re ruthless about winning that general election and putting in place a government of public service, that’ll be a major change in politics.”

Calling the Rwanda scheme a “gimmick”, Starmer went further than he had before in our interview on Friday, telling me he will stop the flights from day one of a Labour government.

Instead, he outlined his own plan to create a new “elite” Border Security Command, made up of MI5 agents, Border Force officers, police, specialist investigators and prosecutors to target the criminal gangs.

This, he insisted, would be a better deterrent as he pledged to bring down the number of boat crossings “drastically” from the approximately 30,000 people who arrived in Britain via such crossings in 2023.

He also said he would reinstate a “rules-based asylum system” in which claims are processed and people are either returned to their country or granted asylum, as he criticised the government’s huge backlog of unprocessed claims.

Pic: PA
Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer, sits with new Labour MP Natalie Elphicke, during a visit to Dover, Kent, to set out his party's plans to tackle the small boats crisis if it wins the general election, with a pledge to end the Conservative party's 'talk tough, do nothing culture' on small boats crossing the English Channel. Picture date: Friday May 10, 2024.
Image:
Sir Keir Starmer with new Labour MP Natalie Elphicke. Pic: PA

But he admitted too after his speech that a Labour government would have nowhere to send thousands of migrants who had arrived from Afghanistan or Syria due to the lack of returns agreements with these war-torn countries.

I pushed him on targets: Would he commit to getting crossings down to 2020-type levels when 8,500 people came across on small boats?

But the Labour leader wouldn’t be drawn, telling me: “I’m not going to pluck out an arbitrary number” – as he took a swipe at Mr Sunak’s promise to ‘stop the boats’.

‘He’s going to open up our borders’

Rishi Sunak, for his part, was full of disdain – arguing that Starmer’s plan was to offer “an amnesty to illegal migrants” and that the Labour leader wasn’t offering anything new.

He said: “As far as I can tell all the things that we’re talking about today, are all things that we’re already doing – punching through the backlog, having more law enforcement officers do more, that’s all happening already.

“We’ve announced all of that more than a year ago.

“When it comes to illegal migration, it’s very simple – he’s just going to scrap the Rwanda plan and open up our borders.

“We’ve got a plan and we’re going to get our planes off.”

Read more:
A defection and intervention show Tories splintering
Officers raid homes of first people to be deported to Rwanda

Pic: Jacob King/PA
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Rishi Sunak was out and about on Friday trying to talk up the economy. Pic: PA

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So far in 2024, 9,037 people have crossed the channel in small boats – 35% higher than at the same stage last year.

The prime minister has promised to stop the boats and get the Rwanda flights going within weeks.

But the country is divided on the plan, and sceptical too – with a YouGov poll in April showing a straight split between those who are supportive of the plan and those who are opposed, with only 23% of respondents believing it will be effective, against 55% of people saying they think it won’t.

It is a sign of confidence that Starmer, who has had to rebuild Labour’s reputation as a party of national security and law and order in the wake of the Corbyn years, now thinks this is a fight he can take to the Tories.

That he took in a right-wing Conservative with a controversial past in order to hammer home that point shows what he’s prepared to do to win.

The question now is whether his plan is more convincing to voters than the prime minister’s.

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Trump tariffs squeeze already struggling Bitcoin miners — Braiins exec

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Trump tariffs squeeze already struggling Bitcoin miners — Braiins exec

Trump tariffs squeeze already struggling Bitcoin miners — Braiins exec

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.

Trump tariffs squeeze already struggling Bitcoin miners — Braiins exec

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.

Trump tariffs squeeze already struggling Bitcoin miners — Braiins exec

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.

Trump tariffs squeeze already struggling Bitcoin miners — Braiins exec

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.

Magazine: Bitcoin ATH sooner than expected? XRP may drop 40%, and more: Hodler’s Digest, March 23 – 29

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Malta regulator fines OKX crypto exchange $1.2M for past AML breaches

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Malta regulator fines OKX crypto exchange .2M for past AML breaches

Malta regulator fines OKX crypto exchange .2M for past AML breaches

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.

Magazine: Stablecoin for cyber-scammers launches, Sony L2 drama: Asia Express

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US court fines UAE crypto firm CLS Global $428K for wash trading

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US court fines UAE crypto firm CLS Global 8K for wash trading

US court fines UAE crypto firm CLS Global 8K for wash trading

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.

US court fines UAE crypto firm CLS Global $428K for wash trading

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.

US court fines UAE crypto firm CLS Global $428K for wash trading

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.

Magazine: Financial nihilism in crypto is over — It’s time to dream big again

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