Rupert Lowe ‘keeping options open’ after ousting by Reform UK
Ousted Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe has told Sky News he has not ruled out joining the Conservatives or a new political party, declaring: “I’m keeping my options open.”
Mr Lowe answered a series of questions from Sky News after the latest twist in his feud with Nigel Farage, with a police investigation launched into claims he threatened party chairman Zia Yusuf.
The Metropolitan Police announced it had launched an investigation “into an allegation of a series of verbal threats made by a 67-year-old man” between December 2024 and February 2025.
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Responding to the police statement, Mr Lowe said he had instructed lawyers, who had made contact with the Met and made them aware of his willingness to co-operate in any necessary investigation.
“My lawyers have not yet received any contact from the police,” he said.
“It is highly unusual for the police to disclose anything to the media at this stage of an investigation.
“I remain unaware of the specific allegations, but in any event, I deny any wrongdoing. The allegations are entirely untrue.”
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Reform UK row explained
Could Lowe join Tories?
Later, Sky News asked the Great Yarmouth MP if he thought there was a way back into Reform UK for him or was this the end – and if he might join the Tories or a new political party.
“This has all happened over a few days,” Mr Lowe replied.
“I have been focused on debunking these false and damaging allegations. Who knows what will happen? I’m keeping my options open.”
In an interview on Monday, Mr Lowe said: “I was a Tory years ago. I think the Tories have got a lot of work to do. I think there’s some extremely good Tory MPs. I get on with a lot of them.”
For the Conservatives, the shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: “He hasn’t applied but obviously we’re a broad and welcoming political party.”
He told Times Radio: “People have been joining the Conservatives from across the political spectrum and we always welcome new joiners.”
Read more:
Reform reports Rupert Lowe to police
The Reform row: What has happened and what has been said?
Mr Lowe is a former chair of Southampton Football Club. File pic: PA
New splinter group?
And in a move seen as a hint of a new splinter group, another ousted Reform UK politician, former deputy leader Ben Habib, told The Daily Telegraph that Mr Lowe was a “good friend” and he was “constantly in touch with” him.
Sky News also asked Mr Lowe who he blamed for the party’s treatment of him, including throwing him out of the party after he criticised Mr Farage. Was Mr Farage or Mr Yusuf to blame?
“Honestly, all of them,” he said.
“This was a team effort to blacken my name. If it wasn’t for my presence on X, I would have been buried under the false allegations. For that, I have to thank Elon Musk.”
He was asked about Mr Farage quoting Labour minister Mike Kane claiming after a heated Commons clash with Mr Lowe in December: “The anger displayed towards me clearly showed a man not in charge of his own faculties.”
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the door was open. Pic: Reuters
In a Sunday Telegraph article, Mr Farage added: “I never saw anything like it in the European Parliament in 2019 when I was the leader of the Brexit Party and Mr Lowe was an MEP colleague.”
In response, Mr Lowe told Sky News: “Reform sources have been briefing that I have dementia. This is the single most appalling thing I have ever seen in politics.
“Anyone who has known someone who has suffered so hideously from dementia will understand just how offensive it is. It shows the type of people we are dealing with.”
In the same article, Mr Farage claimed there had been “too many similar outbursts from Mr Lowe, often involving the use of inappropriate language to the despair of our chief whip, Lee Anderson”.
Mr Lowe hit back, telling Sky News: “More baseless nonsense, spouted out to tarnish my reputation. Their malicious witch-hunt has fallen apart.”
Last year, when Mr Anderson was Conservative Party deputy chairman, he apologised after parliament’s watchdog on bullying and harassment found he told a security guard to “f*** off, everyone opens the door to me”.
He was found to have twice sworn at the security officer and acted in a way that “constituted bullying and also harassment” in breach of parliament’s behaviour policy, an independent expert panel concluded.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is considering rule changes to let companies more freely issue tokenized securities, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce said in a speech published on May 8.
The regulator is “considering a potential exemptive order” for firms using blockchain technology to “issue, trade, and settle securities” that would release them from certain registration requirements, Peirce said in the speech.
For example, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) may no longer need to register “as a broker-dealer, clearing agency, or an exchange,” Peirce said. The SEC has previously brought numerous charges against DEXs such as Uniswap for failing to register as securities exchanges.
Firms should “not have to comply with inapt regulations, which, in many cases, were developed well before the technologies being tested existed and may be obviated by attributes of that technology,” Peirce said.
Under such an exemption, companies would still be expected to comply with rules designed to prevent fraud and market manipulation, the commissioner said. They may also need to meet certain disclosure and recordkeeping requirements.
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Sharp policy pivot
The SEC has dramatically pivoted its stance on cryptocurrency oversight since US President Donald Trump took office in January.
Under the leadership of former SEC Chair Gary Gensler, the agency brought upward 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, the agency has claimed jurisdiction over a narrower segment of cryptocurrencies.
In February, the SEC issued guidance stating that memecoins — if clearly identified as purely speculative assets with no intrinsic value — do not qualify as investment contracts under US law.
In April, the regulator 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.
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Missouri House Bill 594, a bill that would eliminate capital gains tax in the US state, has passed a vote in the state House of Representatives and now heads to Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe’s desk for signature.
According to attorney Aaron Brogan, the bill stipulates a 100% income tax deduction for any capital gains income because the Missouri tax code does not explicitly distinguish between capital gains and income tax.
Brogan told Cointelegraph that the specific mechanism to exempt capital gains taxes outlined in HB 594 is unique and compared it to a similar income tax deduction in the federal tax code. The attorney explained:
“The most natural comparison is the state and local tax (SALT) deduction that the federal government offers — where the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) permits individuals to deduct a certain amount of tax paid in state and local taxes. This is the inverse, which I have never seen before.”
The bill’s timing is significant in that it follows proposals from US President Donald Trump to overhaul the country’s income tax system through comprehensive reform.
Related: US lawmaker targets crypto investors using Puerto Rico as a tax haven
Trump proposes eliminating federal income tax in the United States
Trump has proposed offsetting federal income taxes or eliminating the income tax and replacing the federal tax revenue with money raised through import tariffs.
“When Tariffs cut in, many people’s income taxes will be substantially reduced, maybe even completely eliminated. The focus will be on people making less than $200,000 a year,” the president wrote in an April 27 Truth Social post.
Trump added the plan will create more jobs in the United States as factories return to avoid import duties on their finished products.
Despite this, the market reaction to the tariffs has been overwhelmingly negative, with the stock market recording trillions of dollars in losses in response to tariff headlines and crypto markets shedding hundreds of billions in value.
Additionally, bond yields spiked following the tariff announcements — a sign that investors were rejecting US bonds, which are traditionally seen as a flight to safety.
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Former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky will probably be allowed to travel for his daughter’s wedding regardless of the outcome of his May 8 sentencing hearing.
In a May 8 filing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, Judge John Koeltl approved an application for Mashinsky to travel from New York to Memphis, Tennessee, between May 26 and May 29 for his daughter’s wedding. The approval was available on the public docket as of May 8, but appeared to have been removed at the time of publication.
Judge Koeltl will determine in a May 8 hearing whether Mashinsky serves prison time following a plea deal with prosecutors.
The former Celsius CEO appeared ready to go to trial in 2024 until his lawyers lost a motion to have his charges dismissed. In December, He pleaded guilty to commodities fraud and a fraudulent scheme to manipulate the price of the platform’s native token, CEL.
Related: Celsius’ Mashinsky lashes out at ‘death-in-prison sentence’
Mashinsky has been free on a $40-million bond since July 2023, with travel outside certain areas requiring court approval, such as the roughly 900-mile (1,500-kilometer) distance between New York and Memphis. At the time of publication, it was unclear if he will be expected to surrender to authorities.
Potentially facing decades in prison
Prosecutors have asked the judge to impose a 20-year sentence on the former Celsius CEO, while Mashinsky’s lawyers requested that he serve one year and one day in prison. The hearing could be a bellwether for how criminal cases involving cryptocurrency could change under the Trump administration, which appointed the interim US Attorney for the court district.
On April 17, Mashinsky’s lawyers submitted a letter from his oldest daughter in support of her father ahead of sentencing. The letter claims that Mashinsky does not deserve a “severe punishment,” writing that he “never set out to steal from anyone.” Other members of his family penned similar letters.
The same court district oversaw the sentencing of former FTX CEO Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried, who is currently serving 25 years in prison.
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