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.
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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.
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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.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission, under former chair Gary Gensler, used settlements to pressure founders of decentralized finance platforms from ever working in the industry again, according to venture capital firm Founders Fund partner Joey Krug.
“The thing people don’t really know about is that the government, in many cases, went to founders of DeFi protocols […] and basically told the founders you effectively have to do a settlement with us,” Krug said on stage at the ETHDenver conference on Feb. 27.
“In many cases, they said you also have to sign a thing that says you will never work in crypto again,” he added. “By the way, this agreement, you can’t really talk about it publicly because there’s a non-disparagement clause.”
Krug’s claim adds to a crypto industry rumor dubbed “Operation Chokepoint 2.0” that says the Biden administration tried to kill the local industry through regulators’ enforcement actions and by pressuring banks to cut off or limit services to crypto firms.
“These agencies would basically go to the founders, and they would say, ‘Hey, if you don’t agree to this, you’re just going to end up in jail.’”
Krug said such civil agencies would have to defer to the Department of Justice for it to file criminal charges, but “none of these matters have been referred to the DOJ yet.” He also claimed that “none of these founders actually broke the law.”
Krug said that at first, he “didn’t really believe” such settlements existed, but some founders — who he didn’t name — later showed him their agreements.
Joey Krug (left) on stage with Axios’ Brady Dale (right) at ETHDenver 2025. Source: Turner Wright/Cointelegraph
“Sure enough, there are clauses that say you can never work in crypto again [and] you can’t talk about this to anyone,” he said.
“It was just a crazy, crazy administrative state that got really out of control.”
The SEC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Related: Saga CEO discusses crypto industry’s shift toward GOP — ETHDenver
Since 1972, the SEC has included a “gag rule” in its settlements that forbids defendants from criticizing the agency’s claims — a clause that Commissioner Hester Peirce has said “undermines regulatory integrity.”
Krug said the only way DeFi founders could comment on the settlements is if Congress asked them to testify. He added there are “a lot of founders who would love to talk about how the government basically really screwed them over if Congress asked them to testify.”
Earlier this month, the bank-regulating Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation released nearly 800 pages of so-called “pause letters” that it sent banks and finance firms over their crypto services.
Both the US House and Senate held hearings on crypto debanking in early February that heard from crypto executives on their claimed torrid dealings with trying to access financial services under the Biden administration.
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Additional reporting by Turner Wright.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission says it does not view memecoins as securities but warned any fraudulent tokens could still be subject to enforcement actions by other regulators.
The agency’s Division of Corporation Finance said in a Feb. 27 statement that, in its view, memecoins “do not involve the offer and sale of securities under the federal securities laws” and “are akin to collectibles.”
“As such, persons who participate in the offer and sale of meme coins do not need to register their transactions with the Commission,” the SEC said.
It added that memecoin buyers and holders wouldn’t be protected by US securities laws but said the fraudulent offer and sale of memecoins “may be subject to enforcement action or prosecution by other federal or state agencies.”
The SEC added it shared its views “as part of an effort to provide greater clarity on the application of the federal securities laws to crypto assets.”
US President Donald Trump has moved to cull the SEC’s regulatory oversight of the crypto space, looking to make good on one of his campaign promises. The agency launched a Crypto Task Force last month to create a framework for digital assets.
Trump and first lady Melania Trump themselves had launched memecoins just days before they entered the White House on Jan. 20, which sparked criticism from many crypto commentators and some of Trump’s supporters.
Donald Trump’s memecoin, Official Trump (TRUMP), is down nearly 83% from its peak, while Melania Trump’s token, Melania Meme (MELANIA), is down 93.5% from its high, according to CoinGecko.
The TRUMP memecoin hit a peak of $73.43 a day before Trump assumed office but is now trading at around $12.66. Source: CoinGecko
The SEC’s statement comes after ABC News reported the same day that US House Democrats are set to introduce a bill banning public officials, including presidents, from being able to issue, sponsor or endorse any security, commodity or digital asset, including memecoins.
In its statement, the SEC said that memecoins “typically have limited or no use or functionality” and “tend to experience significant market price volatility.”
It added a memecoin doesn’t fit with “any of the common financial instruments specifically enumerated in the definition of ‘security’” — such as stocks or bonds — as they don’t give a yield or rights to “future income, profits, or assets of a business.”
The SEC said a memecoin doesn’t fit under the definition of an “investment contract” under the securities-defining Howey test — defined as money invested in a common enterprise, such as a business, where investors have an expectation of profiting from the efforts of others.
Related: Former CFTC lawyer says agency should take lead on memecoin regulations
“The offer and sale of meme coins does not involve an investment in an enterprise nor is it undertaken with a reasonable expectation of profits to be derived from the entrepreneurial or managerial efforts of others,” the agency said.
“In other words, a meme coin is not itself a security.”
The SEC added that its statement doesn’t apply to memecoins inconsistent with its description of one, or any products labeled as a memecoin in a bid to hide from securities laws “by disguising a product that otherwise would constitute a security.”
“The Division will evaluate the economic realities of the particular transaction,” it said.
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, who is leading the agency’s Crypto Task Force, said earlier this month that many memecoins “probably do not have a home in the SEC under our current set of regulations.”
X Hall of Flame: Memecoins will die and DeFi will rise again — Sasha Ivanov
Recent efforts to “debank” crypto firms in the US revealed a “staggering” level of corruption among government officials, and the problem is not yet resolved, one banking executive said in a Feb. 27 interview during Bitcoin Investor Week.
“The magnitude of skullduggery that is happening in Washington D.C. is really incredible… and it’s not over yet,” Caitlin Long, Custodia Bank’s founder and CEO, said during a panel at the event.
In 2023, the US Federal Reserve, which regulates banks, stymied Custodia’s efforts to service crypto firms by denying the bank access to a master account, citing Custodia’s involvement in “crypto-asset-related activities.”
A master account would allow the bank to custody assets directly with the central bank and access payment rails for inter-bank transfers. Custodia took legal action against the Fed in a bid to reverse the decision.
Custodia Bank CEO Caitlin Long speaks at Bitcoin Investor Week. Source: Cointelegraph
Related: FDIC releases 790 pages of crypto-related letters in regulatory pivot
Industry outrage over alleged debanking reached a crescendo when a June 2024 lawsuit spearheaded by Coinbase resulted in the release of letters showing US banking regulators asked certain financial institutions to “pause” crypto banking activities.
US President Donald Trump, who started his term on Jan. 20, has criticized the prior administration’s approach to crypto-friendly banks and vowed to better integrate cryptocurrencies, including stablecoins, into the regulated financial system.
In a Jan. 23 executive order, Trump told agencies to prioritize “fair and open access to banking services” for digital asset firms.
Stablecoin scrum
However, the battle for regulatory clarity isn’t over, Long said. Instead, it has evolved into a multi-directional fight among different types of stablecoin issuers seeking preferential rules, she said.
There is an ongoing “scrum between the big banks… and the incumbent stablecoin issuers, and then there’s Tether,” which is not based in the US, Long said.
The result has been “this incredible flow of money that has gone from the banks and the crypto industry to people in [Washington] D.C., and they’re all going to fight,” Long said.
“I don’t know how it’s going to come out,” she added.
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