Starmer rules out another general election after petition reaches two million signatures
Sir Keir Starmer has ruled out an early general election after a petition calling for a second vote reached two million signatures.
The petition was launched over the weekend and says there should be another vote, just four months after Labour won a landslide, because they have “gone back on their promises they laid out in the lead up to the last election”.
By Monday mid-morning, it had reached two million signatures and was climbing fast.
Politics latest: Chancellor warned of negative impact of budget tax increases
Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has only been in power for four months
But the prime minister said he would not be calling another election.
However, he said he was “not surprised” those who did not want to support Labour wanted a second vote.
“Look, I remind myself that very many people didn’t vote Labour at the last election,” he told ITV’s Good Morning Britain.
“I’m not surprised that many of them want a rerun. That isn’t how our system works. There will be plenty of people who didn’t want us in, in the first place.
“So, what my focus is on is the decisions that I have to make every day.”
Petitions on the government website are considered for debate by MPs after 10,000 signatures. Petitions get a government response after the tally reaches 100,000.
Even before Sir Keir ruled one out, an early general election was unlikely as Labour has a large majority and only the prime minister has the power to ask the King to call a general election.
Elon Musk, seen here with Donald Trump, posted about the petition. Pic: Reuters
Over the weekend, MPs considered to be from the right of the Tories or from Reform UK, were urging people on social media to sign the petition.
Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice and Conservative shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith were among those sharing the petition.
Donald Trump aide Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, reposted a link to a post which said it had got 200,000 signatures in a few hours. He wrote: “Wow.”
Musk has previously spoken out against Sir Keir Starmer, calling him “two-tier Keir” over accusations police were treating communities according to their racial background in different ways.
Some X users have been urging people from all over the world to sign the petition and provided a list of postcodes so they could pretend they were UK voters – a stipulation of being able to sign the petition.
The government has faced a sizeable backlash against some of the policies it has introduced, including inheritance tax on farms, cutting winter fuel payments, raising employers’ national insurance and applying VAT to private school fees.
Read more:
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Starmer defends inheritance tax plans
The petition was launched by Michael Westwood, the owner of the Wagon and Horses pub in Oldbury in the West Midlands.
He told the Daily Express: “I think people have had enough, people have seen what’s happened over in America as well, and I think that’s had a knock-on effect that, actually, if people stand together and vote then we can make a change.”
The latest Ipsos political pulse poll found the Labour Party is not viewed very well, with 28% of the public holding a favourable view and 49% unfavourable.
Labour’s overall performance since coming into power is ranked as four out of 10.
A majority (56%) said they felt the country is heading in the wrong direction, while two in five Britons said they are worse off since Labour came to power.
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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