‘Return hubs’ get UN backing in boost for potential plans to deport failed asylum seekers
“Return hubs” that would see Britain send failed asylum seekers to another country have been endorsed by the UN’s refugee agency.
There have been reports that Sir Keir Starmer’s government is looking into deporting illegal migrants to the Balkans.
According to The Times, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper met the UN’s high commissioner for refugees last month to discuss the idea.
It would see the government pay countries in the Balkans to take failed asylum seekers – a prospect ministers hope might discourage people from crossing the Channel in small boats.
A total of 9,099 migrants have made that journey so far this year, including more than 700 on Tuesday this week – the highest number on a single day in 2025.
One migrant died while trying to make the crossing on Friday.
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One dead in Channel crossing
The UN’s refugee agency has set out how such hubs could work while meeting its legal standards in a document published earlier this week.
It recommended monitoring the hubs to make sure human rights standards are “reliably met”.
The country hosting the return hub would need to grant temporary legal status for migrants, and the country sending the failed asylum seekers would need to support it to make sure there are “adequate accommodation and reception arrangements”.
A UK government source said it was a helpful intervention that could make the legal pathway to some form of return hub model smoother.
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It comes after the EU Commission proposed allowing EU members to set up so-called “return hubs” abroad, with member state Italy having already started sending illegal migrants abroad.
It sends people with no right to remain to Italian-run detention centres in Albania, something Sir Keir has taken an interest in since coming to power.
With Reform UK leading Labour in several opinion polls this year, the prime minister has been talking tough on immigration – but the figures around Channel crossings have made for difficult reading.
Wyoming Representative Harriet Hageman intensified chatter about a 2026 Senate run by posting a video days after Senator Cynthia Lummis announced she will not seek reelection.
The five-second clip shows the congresswoman alongside a single-word caption: “Soon.” It breaks a months‑long lull on her account and bolsters speculation that she is eyeing Lummis’ open seat.
Wyoming’s Senate seat has been a reliable voice in advancing regulatory clarity for the crypto industry, from market structure bills and stablecoin regulation to banking access. Whoever replaces Lummis will help decide whether crypto keeps a dedicated champion in the Senate.
A crypto ally steps down
Lummis is expected to retire at the end of her term, removing one of the digital‑asset industry’s most outspoken allies from the Senate just as lawmakers edge toward potential votes on landmark market‑structure legislation.
Lummis has built a national profile as a reliable pro‑crypto voice, embracing Bitcoin early and co‑sponsoring legislative efforts widely viewed to advance the blockchain industry, including the Responsible Financial Innovation Act and the ongoing US Clarity Act.
Her pending exit leaves the industry without a guaranteed champion in a chamber that has become increasingly central to decisions on trading‑platform oversight, stablecoin rules and banking access for crypto firms.
Related: Crypto community ‘very sorry’ over Senator Lummis’ reelection decision
Hageman’s record and crypto’s hopes
As Wyoming’s at‑large House member, she has so far focused on broader conservative themes like parental rights in education, opposition to federal overreach and backing pro‑fossil fuel energy policies, while aligning herself with President Donald Trump. A Senate campaign would test how much she is willing to lean into Lummis’ crypto legacy alongside those priorities.
Wyoming’s crypto community is already nudging her in that direction. Caitlin Long, founder of Custodia Bank and a key architect of the state’s blockchain‑friendly laws, praised Hageman as “salt of the earth.” Long was reacting to news of Hageman’s expected entry in the race.
Related: Crypto among sectors ‘debanked’ by 9 major banks: US regulator
Long’s backing effectively introduces Hageman to crypto audiences as the preferred successor, even though the House member has not yet made digital assets a signature focus.
Wyoming’s 2026 Senate race is now poised to double as a test of whether the state wants to preserve its identity as home to the Senate’s most visible crypto advocate, or fold digital asset policy into a broader Trump‑era Republican agenda.
Bybit will begin phasing out services for residents of Japan from 2026, introducing gradual account restrictions as it moves to comply with the country’s regulatory requirements, the cryptocurrency exchange said on Monday.
The exchange said users classified as Japanese residents will be subject to the restrictions on a rolling basis, while those incorrectly flagged have been asked to complete additional identity checks. Bybit is not registered with Japan’s Financial Services Agency, which requires crypto exchanges serving Japanese users to hold local approval.
“If you’re a resident of Japan, please note that starting from 2026 your account will be subject to gradual restrictions. You’ll receive additional updates on the remediation process in subsequent communications,” the exchange said in an announcement on Monday.
Bybit often ranks as the world’s second-largest crypto exchange by daily trading volume. At the time of writing, it processed about $4.3 billion in trades in 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data.
Related: Japan plans tough new rules for crypto exchanges: What liability reserves actually mean
Bybit halts new user registrations
The announcement follows earlier steps taken by Bybit to limit its exposure to Japan. In October, the exchange said it would pause new user registrations in Japan, citing ongoing discussions with the country’s Financial Services Agency (FSA).
In February, the FSA asked Apple and Google to suspend downloads of five unregistered cryptocurrency exchanges, including Bybit, MEXC Global, LBank Exchange, KuCoin and Bitget.
Japan maintains one of the world’s strictest crypto oversight regimes. In July, Maksym Sakharov, co-founder and CEO of decentralized onchain bank WeFi, told Cointelegraph that Japan’s regulatory bottleneck is pushing innovation out of the country.
Bybit did not respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment by press time.
Related: Japan’s new crypto tax could wake ‘sleeping giant’ of retail investors
Bybit reenters the UK
Meanwhile, Bybit is reentering the UK market after a two-year pause with a new platform offering spot trading and a peer-to-peer service, operating under a promotions arrangement approved by Archax rather than its own UK registration.
Last month, Bybit also secured a Virtual Asset Platform Operator License from the Securities and Commodities Authority of the United Arab Emirates, eight months after receiving an in-principle approval from the local regulator.
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A millionaires’ playground, Poole in Dorset boasts some of the most expensive properties in the UK, and has been called Britain’s Palm Beach.
Away from the yachts and the mansions of Sandbanks, however, Poole is also a beer drinkers’ paradise, with 58 pubs in the parliamentary constituency alone.
But now many of Dorset’s pub landlords have joined a bitter backlash against rises in business rates of up to £30,000 in Rachel Reeves’s November budget.
Across the UK, it is claimed up to 1,000 publicans have even banned Labour MPs from their pubs, after the chancellor axed a 40% rates discount, introduced during COVID, from next April.
The row over the rises, brewing since the budget, came to a head in a clash between Kemi Badenoch and Sir Keir Starmer in the final Prime Minister’s Questions of 2025.
“He gave his word that he would help pubs,” said the Tory leader.
“Yet they face a 15% rise in business rates because of his budget. Will he be honest and admit that his taxes are forcing pubs to close?”
The PM replied that the temporary relief introduced during COVID – a scheme the Conservatives put in place and Labour supported, he said – had come to an end.
“But it was always a temporary scheme coming to an end,” he said.
“We have now put in place a £4bn transitional relief.”
Mark and Michael Ambrose, father and son co-landlords of The Barking Cat, said the increases are a ‘pub destroyer’
But in the Barking Cat Ale House in Poole, facing an increase in business rates of nearly £9,000 a year, the father and son co-landlords fear the rises could mean last orders for many pubs.
“We’re sort of in the average area at 157%, but we’ve got a lot of local pubs that are increasing by 600%, and another one by 800%,” Ambrose senior, Mark, told Sky News.
“It’s a pub destroyer. Pubs can’t survive these kinds of increases. It’s not viable. Most pubs are just about scraping by anyway. If you add these massive increases your profit margins are wiped out.
“We struggle as it is. You can’t have that kind of increase and expect businesses to succeed.
“Fortunately, the customers understand. But they still don’t want to have to spend an extra 30 or 50 pence a pint.”
Son Michael added: “It’s all back to front. It’s really these bigger pub companies and supermarkets that need to be facing increased taxes. We can’t handle them. They can.”
Michelle Smith, landlady of the Poole Arms, the oldest pub on the town’s quay, dating back to 1635, said: “Our rates per value is due to go up £9,000 in April, so it’s quite a deal.”
Michelle Smith, landlady of The Poole Arms, said all her prices are going up
“And we had a rates increase just gone as well,” she added. “So our rates had already increased over £1,000 a month last April. So another hit is quite considerable really.
“Prices definitely have to go up with all the different price increases that we’ve got throughout: business rates, wage increases, the beer goes up from the breweries. Everything is going up.”
Backing the publicans, Neil Duncan-Jordan, who became Poole’s first ever Labour MP last year, has written to the chancellor demanding a rethink. He said he is prepared to vote against the tax rise in the Commons.
“They’ve got to listen,” he told Sky News.
“They’ve got to listen to the high street, to publicans, people who run social clubs and listen to problems that they’re facing and the impact that these changes have made.”
Mr Duncan-Jordan said he was prepared to support an amendment to the Finance Bill, which turns the budget into law and had its second reading in the Commons last week.
Despite being suspended for four months for rebelling against welfare cuts earlier this year, he said: “I was discussing this with some MPs just this morning and I’ll be happy to support those. Sometimes you just have to say what you think is right.”
As chancellor, Ms Reeves has regularly raised a glass to pubs and promised to protect them from rising costs.
But Sir Keir has faced the wrath of a publican before, when he was thrown out of a pub in Bath during COVID by an anti-lockdown landlord.
This time, without a U-turn by the chancellor on the business rates increases, pub landlords fear the government has them over a barrel.
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