Why Tory leadership hopefuls may want to take a page out of Starmer’s playbook to gaining power
A new political term, and a new reality for the Conservatives, as what’s left of the party regroups in Westminster and gets down to the business of picking a new leader.
On Monday, it was the turn of Kemi Badenoch and James Cleverly to officially launch their campaigns ahead of the first knock-out round on Wednesday.
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Their competing visions for the party are a window into how this race will shape up.
Those involved say the choice Conservative MPs and members make will determine whether the party has a shot of turning its devastating election loss into just one term out of office.
Look at the Labour working majority of 181 and the obvious answer seems to be that a rebuild is a two-term project at the very best.
But as both Badenoch and Cleverly supporters told me at their launch today, the Starmer support is wide but shallow, with the Labour leader garnering the support of 34% of voters (as opposed to 43% of the vote won by Tony Blair in 1997).
The two would-be leaders on Monday had very different pitches.
Badenoch is running on a ticket of “renewal” and used her speech to outline her principles – personal responsibility, citizenship, family, telling the truth – rather than going into policies.
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‘Kemi has Thatcher’s courage’
She pledged to tell “hard truths” as she declared that her former government “talked right but governed left, sounding like Conservatives but acting like Labour”.
“Government should do fewer things, but what it does, it should do with brilliance,” she said.
“We can’t just keep having the same policy arguments from the last parliament. We lost. We are not in power… we have to focus on renewal. The renewal of our party, our politics, our thinking.”
Cleverly, meanwhile, leaned into a policy platform.
He spoke about spending 3% on more on defence, bringing back the Rwanda scheme, cutting taxes, and shrinking the state, as he pitched himself as the ultra-loyalist former cabinet minister who could unite the party and use his experience in government to get the Tories ready for power once more.
Read More:
Who is running in the Conservative leadership race?
‘Pointing out how terrible Labour are’ won’t win trust, says Badenoch
At the heart of the debate, and the success or failure of the next iteration of the Conservative party, is whether MPs and members select a leader that doesn’t just win back voters lost to Reform by tacking right on immigration – (Robert Jenrick and Tom Tugenhadt are pledging to leave the ECHR in order to tackle the small boat crisis, something Cleverly argued is not necessary, and Badenoch says is not a priority), but also wins back the millions that drifted to Labour, the Lib Dems or stayed at home.
Badenoch is the bookies’ favourite, but around Westminster, seasoned political operatives say the contest is simply too hard to call.
Badenoch commanded the support of a number of high profile MPs today at her launch, such as former cabinet minister Claire Coutinho and ex-Treasury minister Laura Trott.
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General Election 2024 round-up
Cleverly only had four MPs at his event, which instead was filled with party members, with activists there telling me his undying loyalty to the party during difficult times had won plenty of support with the grassroots.
On Wednesday, one of the six will be eliminated from the race, with another candidate going the following week.
The remaining four will battle it out at the party conference at the end of the month before MPs whittle the four down to a final two for the party membership to choose between.
For a party badly battered in the last general election, they can at least take comfort that the man in No10 was written off when he took over from Jeremy Corbyn in 2020 as a Labour leader who would never be able to overturn Johnson’s 80-seat majority in one term.
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There are many reasons for this, from external pressures – be it the COVID-19 pandemic and war in Ukraine – to own goals and leadership failure – “Partygate”, Tory turmoil, and the chaotic premiership of Liz Truss.
But it was helped too by a leader that talked to the left during the leadership race, only to reset in the centre group and – in Starmer’s words – “put country before party” when he finally got his hands on the top job.
After learning the lessons of the election drubbing, the next Conservative leader might want to look at the Starmer playbook for clawing your party back to power too.
A group of investors with cryptocurrency custody and trading firm Bakkt Holdings filed a class-action lawsuit alleging false or misleading statements and a failure to disclose certain information.
Lead plaintiff Guy Serge A. Franklin called for a jury trial as part of a complaint against Bakkt, senior adviser and former CEO Gavin Michael, CEO and president Andrew Main, and interim chief financial officer Karen Alexander, according to an April 2 filing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The group of investors allege damages as the result of violations of US securites laws and a lack of transparency surrounding its agreement with clients: Webull and Bank of America (BoA).
April 2 complaint against Bakkt and its executives. Source: PACER
The loss of Bank of America and Webull will result “in a 73% loss in top line revenue” due to the two firms making up a significant percentage of its services revenue, the investor group alleges in the lawsuit. The filing stated Webull made up 74% of Bakkt’s crypto services revenue through most of 2023 and 2024, and Bank of America made up 17% of its loyalty services revenue from January to September 2024.
Related: Bakkt names new co-CEO amid re-focus on crypto offerings
Bakkt disclosed on March 17 that Bank of America and Webull did not intend to renew their agreements with the firm ending in 2025. The announcement likely contributed to the company’s share price falling more than 27% in the following 24 hours. The investors allege Bakkt “misrepresented the stability and/or diversity of its crypto services revenue” and failed to disclose that this revenue was “substantially dependent” on Webull’s contract.
“As a result of Defendants’ wrongful acts and omissions, and the precipitous decline in the market value of the Company’s securities, Plaintiff and other Class members have suffered significant losses and damages,” said the suit.
Other law offices said they were investigating Bakkt for securities law violations, suggesting additional class-action lawsuits may be in the works. Cointelegraph contacted Bakkt for a comment on the lawsuit but did not receive a response at the time of publication.
Prices affected by Trump Media reports
Bakkt’s share price surged roughly 162% in November 2024 after reports suggested that then-US President-elect Donald Trump’s media company was considering acquiring the firm. As of April 2025, neither company has officially announced a deal.
Shares in Bakkt (BKKT) were $8.15 at the time of publication, having fallen more than 36% in the previous 30 days.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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