Conservative Mark Logan defects to Labour – saying ‘we need a new government’

Published

2 years ago

May 30, 2024

admin

Sir Keir Starmer is celebrating the third defection by a Tory to Labour in just over a month.

Mark Logan, who was elected Conservative MP for Bolton North East in 2019, has told Sky News he is quitting the Tories and is urging people to vote Labour in the general election on 4 July.

In recent months he has been a fierce critic of the government’s policy on Gaza and is now calling on the UK to recognise Palestine as a country.

Follow live:
Reaction to defection and general election updates

Northern Ireland-born Mr Logan, 40, won his seat from Labour in the 2019 general election with a slender majority of just 378. It had been Labour since 1997 but was previously held by the Tories.

A former UK diplomat serving in China who is fluent in Mandarin and Japanese, his dramatic switch follows secret talks with Labour chief whip Sir Alan Campbell and members of Sir Keir’s inner circle.

Mr Logan had been due to defend the seat in the general election, but after his shock defection, he hopes to become a Labour candidate in another constituency.

More politics:
Abbott accuses Starmer of ‘culling’ Labour left wingers
Polling suggests trouble ahead for Starmer if times get tough

In a “personal statement” on Commons stationery written just before parliament dissolved on Thursday, Mr Logan referred to Labour’s 1997 election anthem Things Can Only Get Better.

He wrote: “Labour is back, and given how things have been, I believe things can only get better.

“After much soul-searching throughout my first term in parliament, brought to a head with the calling of a snap election last week, I have concluded that we need a new government and I believe the UK will be best served with that government being a Labour government.

“We need renewed enthusiasm and optimism in both tone and in policy, and I believe that we are already seeing this through Keir Starmer and the team.

“I am resigning from the Conservative Party with immediate effect. Regrettably, I will therefore not contest our constituency at the upcoming general election.”

And he concluded: “The first time I voted, I voted for Labour. The next time I vote it will be a vote for Labour.”

Besides the obvious humiliation for Rishi Sunak, the latest defection is also embarrassing for the prime minister because Mr Logan is a junior member of the government, a parliamentary private secretary to ministers in the Department for Work and Pensions.

He becomes the third Tory to defect to Labour since late April, following Dan Poulter and Natalie Elphicke, and the fourth since the last election, following Christian Wakeford in January 2022.

Since the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October last year, Mr Logan – whose constituency has a large Muslim population – has been increasingly critical of UK policy and the actions of the Israeli government during its response in Gaza.

In the controversial Commons debate in February on an SNP motion demanding an immediate ceasefire, he dramatically broke ranks with his own party and said Israel had “gone too far”.

In defiance of government policy, he told MPs: “I no longer in good conscience can continue backing in public the line that we have taken on this side of the House, regrettably.”

? Tap here to follow Politics at Jack at Sam’s wherever you get your podcasts ?

In a TV interview in March, Mr Logan also accused Lee Anderson of Islamophobia and said he should apologise for claims he made about London mayor Sadiq Khan after defecting from the Tories to Reform UK.

And in his final Commons intervention on Gaza, two days before Mr Sunak’s shock general election announcement, Mr Logan angrily challenged Andrew Mitchell, the deputy foreign secretary.

“My constituents in Bolton are livid today,” he declared at the time, “because they have seen through the International Criminal Court that there is evidence that ‘acts were committed… to use starvation as a method of war’, along with violence.

“Evidence of the collective punishment of the civilian population of Gaza and evidence that Israel has intentionally and systematically deprived the civilian population in all parts of Gaza of objects indispensable to human survival.

“Never mind being on the right side of history, will we ensure that we are on the right side of the present?”

Politics

Coinbase borrows Kalshi’s playbook, sues three states over prediction markets

Published

3 hours ago

December 19, 2025

admin

Coinbase borrows Kalshi’s playbook, sues three states over prediction markets

Coinbase is taking three US states to court in a bid to lock in federal protection for its planned prediction markets, opening a new front in the battle over whether event contracts are finance or gambling.

The exchange has sued regulators in Connecticut, Illinois, and Michigan, asking federal judges to declare that prediction markets listed on a US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)-regulated platform fall under the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and the CFTC’s exclusive jurisdiction, not 50 separate state gambling codes.

In a Friday X post, chief legal officer Paul Grewal said Coinbase filed the cases “to confirm what is clear: prediction markets fall squarely under the jurisdiction of the @CFTC, not any individual state gaming regulator (let alone 50).”

Coinbase’s federalism challenge to state gambling laws

Coinbase frames the dispute as both a legal and structural question. Court filings argue that if each state can independently decide whether federally supervised prediction markets are illegal gambling, the most restrictive regime would effectively become the national standard, “turning our system of federalism upside down.”

The company also leans hard on the way Congress defined “commodity” in the CEA, noting that lawmakers chose to carve out only a handful of specific underliers, notably onions and “motion‑picture box‑office receipts,” rather than sports or politics.

*Coinbase filing against Michigan. Source:* *Court Listener*

Grewal draws a clear line between Coinbase’s planned markets and traditional sportsbooks. Casinos and bookmakers, he argues, profit from customer losses and set odds to maximize their winnings. Prediction markets, on the other hand, are neutral matching engines that pair buyers and sellers and are indifferent to price.

Treating both as the same thing, Coinbase says, would not only misread the statute but also smother a federally regulated product that is supposed to live inside the derivatives framework, with CFTC surveillance and position limits.

Kalshi’s mixed record shows what’s at stake for prediction markets

Kalshi, which already operates as a CFTC‑designated contract market for event contracts, has been testing that theory in court for almost a year. It has sued or been sued in at least six states over whether its sports and event markets are CFTC‑regulated derivatives or unlicensed gambling.

Outcomes so far are mixed. In Nevada and Maryland, judges have held that Kalshi is subject to state gaming oversight despite its CFTC status, while in New Jersey and, more recently, Connecticut, federal courts have granted the company temporary protection from enforcement while they weigh broader injunctions. Massachusetts, meanwhile, has sued to block Kalshi’s sports products, with an injunction decision not expected until early 2026.

With Coinbase now effectively adopting Kalshi’s pre‑emption playbook, the combined docket could force federal courts to answer the core question both firms have been circling. Are US prediction markets going to be treated as regulated financial instruments under the CEA, or as gambling products that live or die under state law?