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.
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”.
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.
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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.
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.”
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.
United States Senator Cynthia Lummis suggests the crypto industry may be celebrating too soon over the US Federal Reserve softening its crypto guidance for banks.
“The Fed withdrawing crypto guidance is just noise, not real progress,” Lummis said in an April 25 X post. Lummis called the Fed’s April 24 announcement — withdrawing its 2022 supervisory letter that had discouraged banks from engaging with crypto and stablecoin activities — “just lip service.”
Lummis’ tone was different from the rest of the crypto industry
Lummis, a pro-crypto advocate known for introducing the Bitcoin (BTC) Strategic Reserve Bill in July 2024, pointed out several flaws in the Fed’s announcement, even as Strategy founder Michael Saylor and crypto entrepreneur Anthony Pompliano suggested it was a step forward for banks and crypto.
She argued that the Fed continues to “illegally flout the law on master accounts” and still relies on reputational risk in its bank supervision practices. It comes as the Federal Insurance Deposit Corporation (FDIC) is working on a rule to stop examiners from considering reputational risk when reviewing a bank’s operations, according to a recent Bloomberg report.
Lummis also highlighted the Fed’s policy statement in Section 9(13), which hasn’t been withdrawn, stating that Bitcoin and digital assets are considered “unsafe and unsound.”
She also reiterated many of the same staff behind Operation Chokepoint 2.0 are still involved in crypto policy today.
“We are NOT fooled. The Fed assassinated companies within the industry and hurt American interests by stifling innovation and shuttering businesses. This fight is far from over.”
“I will continue to hold the Fed accountable until the digital asset industry gets more than a life jacket, Chair Powell — they need a fair shake,” Lummis said.
However, many crypto executives praised the Fed’s announcement as a positive development for the industry. Saylor said in an April 25 X post that the Fed’s move means that “banks are now free to begin supporting Bitcoin.”
Anastasija Plotnikova, co-founder and CEO of blockchain regulatory firm Fideum, said the Fed’s decision “is a significant development, as it will simplify the path to institutional adoption.”
In one of his first appearances as the recently sworn-in chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Paul Atkins delivered remarks to the agency’s third roundtable discussion of crypto regulation.
In the “Know Your Custodian” roundtable event on April 25, Atkins said he expected “huge benefits” from blockchain technology through efficiency, risk mitigation, transparency, and cutting costs. He reiterated that among his goals at the SEC would be to facilitate “clear regulatory rules of the road” for digital assets, hinting that the agency under former chair Gary Gensler had contributed to market and regulatory uncertainty.
“I look forward to engaging with market participants and working with colleagues in President Trump’s administration and Congress to establish a rational fit-for-purpose framework for crypto assets,” said Atkins.
SEC chair Paul Atkins addressing the April 25 crypto roundtable. Source: SEC
Some critics of US President Donald Trump see Atkins’ nomination to lead the SEC as a nod to the crypto industry, acting on campaign promises to remove Gensler — the former chair resigned the day Trump took office — and cut back on regulation. Democratic lawmakers on the Senate Banking Committee questioned Atkins on his ties to the industry, potentially presenting conflicts of interest in his role regulating crypto.
“We’ve noticed that we don’t have to be as concerned […] about being accused of things that we’re not doing, like being broker-dealers for securities,” Exodus chief legal officer Veronica McGregor, who participated in the roundtable, told Cointelegraph on April 24.”It’s just a less scary regulatory environment in general. It is, however, still unclear what the ultimate regs are going to look like for crypto.”
The SEC crypto task force is scheduled to hold two more roundtables in May and June to discuss tokenization and decentralized finance, respectively. Commissioner Hester Peirce, who leads the task force, told Cointelegraph in March that she welcomed the opportunity to work with Atkins to “reorient the agency,” hinting at an SEC with regulations more favorable to the crypto industry.
In addition to the roundtables, the crypto task force has reported several meetings with digital asset firms to discuss various policies and considerations in developing a regulatory framework.
Nasdaq has urged the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to hold digital assets to the same regulatory standards as securities if they constitute “stocks by any other name,” according to an April 25 comment letter.
The exchange said the US financial regulator needs to establish a clearer taxonomy for cryptocurrencies, including categorizing a portion of digital assets as “financial securities.” Those tokens, Nasdaq argued, should continue to be regulated “as they are regulated today regardless of tokenized form.”
“Whether it takes the form of a paper share, a digital share, or a token, an instrument’s underlying nature remains the same and it should be traded and regulated in the same ways,” the letter said.
It also proposed categorizing a portion of cryptocurrencies as “digital asset investment contracts,” to be subject to “light touch regulation” but still overseen by the SEC.
Nasdaq’s April 25 letter to the SEC. Source: Nasdaq
The SEC has dramatically pivoted its stance on cryptocurrency oversight since US President Donald Trump took office in January.
Under the leadership of former Chair Gary Gensler, the SEC took the position that practically all cryptocurrencies, with the exception of Bitcoin (BTC), represent investment contracts and therefore qualify as securities.
This stance led the agency to bring upwards of 100 lawsuits against crypto firms for alleged securities law violations.
However, under Trump nominee Paul Atkins, who was sworn in as chair on April 21 after a lengthy Senate confirmation, the SEC has claimed jurisdiction over a narrower segment of cryptocurrencies.
In February, the agency issued guidance stating that memecoins — if clearly identified as purely speculative assets with no intrinsic value — do not qualify as investment contracts pursuant to US law.
In April, the SEC said that stablecoins — digital tokens pegged to the US dollar — similarly do not qualify as securities if they are marketed solely as a means of making payments.
In its April 21 letter, Nasdaq said existing financial infrastructure “can readily absorb digital assets by establishing the proper taxonomy and calibrating certain rules to reflect what is truly new and novel about digital assets.”
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) — a private US securities clearinghouse closely overseen by the SEC — has been laying the foundation for integrating blockchain technology into regulated financial markets.