Rishi Sunak says voting for Reform would hand Labour ‘blank cheque’ as he responds to poll crossover
Rishi Sunak has responded to a poll showing Nigel Farage’s Reform party ahead of the Conservatives – saying a vote for the party would “give a blank cheque to Labour”.
Speaking to journalists at the G7 summit in Italy, the prime minister said: “We are only halfway through this election, so I’m still fighting very hard for every vote.
“And what that poll shows is – the only poll that matters is the one on 4 July – but if that poll was replicated on 4 July, it would be handing Labour a blank cheque to tax everyone, tax their home their pension their car, their family, and I’ll be fighting very hard to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Election latest: Reform overtakes Tories for first time
Mr Sunak batted away the suggestion from Mr Farage that his party now represents the opposition to Labour – after a poll by YouGov put Reform on 19% and the Conservatives on just 18%.
The prime minister said: “Actually, when I’ve been out and about talking to people, they do understand that a vote for anyone who is not a Conservative candidate is just a vote to put Keir Starmer in Number 10.
“So if you want action on lower taxes, lower migration, protected pensions or a sensible approach to net zero you’re only going to get that by voting Conservative.
“And when people are thinking about the substance of what they want to see from a future government, if you’re someone who wants to see control over borders, you’re going to get that from us.”
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
He went on: “You’re not going to get that from Labour – they’re going to cancel the Rwanda scheme, they’re not going to put in place a legal migration cap… a sensible approach to net zero.
“I’ve already announced that; Labour would reverse those reforms and put everyone’s bills up with net zero costs.
“And if you want your pension protected, we’re the only ones offering the triple lock plus, so actually, you know, when people sit down especially now this week when everyone can see very clearly the difference in approach from the two parties… will crystallise people’s minds on polling day.”
Ed Conway analyses manifestos:
Labour relying heavily on economic growth
Deep question marks buried in Conservative plan
Asked if the Tory party faced an “existential” threat, Mr Sunak said the publication of the two manifestos showed “there’s a massive difference on tax” between the Conservatives and Labour.
“We want to cut your taxes at every stage of your life in work, setting up a business, buying your first home, when you’re retired, you’re a pensioner or if you have a family – cutting taxes for everybody,” he said.
“The Labour Party consistently can’t tell you which taxes they’re going to put up, but they are going to put them up and as we saw yesterday, they’re going to raise the tax burden to the highest level in this country’s history. And that’s the choice for everyone at the election.”
Former US Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler renewed his warning to investors about the risks of cryptocurrencies, calling most of the market “highly speculative” in a new Bloomberg interview on Tuesday.
He carved out Bitcoin (BTC) as comparatively closer to a commodity while stressing that most tokens don’t offer “a dividend” or “usual returns.”
Gensler framed the current market backdrop as a reckoning consistent with warnings he made while in office that the global public’s fascination with cryptocurrencies doesn’t equate to fundamentals.
“All the thousands of other tokens, not the stablecoins that are backed by US dollars, but all the thousands of other tokens, you have to ask yourself, what are the fundamentals? What’s underlying it… The investing public just needs to be aware of those risks,” he said.
Gensler’s record and industry backlash
Gensler led the SEC from April 17, 2021, to Jan. 20, 2025, overseeing an aggressive enforcement agenda that included lawsuits against major crypto intermediaries and the view that many tokens are unregistered securities.
Related: House Republicans to probe Gary Gensler’s deleted texts
The industry winced at high‑profile actions against exchanges and staking programs, as well as the posture that most token issuers fell afoul of registration rules.
Under Gensler’s tenure, Coinbase was sued by the SEC for operating as an unregistered exchange, broker and clearing agency, and for offering an unregistered staking-as-a-service program. Kraken was also forced to shut its US staking program and pay a $30 million penalty.
The politicization of crypto
Pushed on the politicization of crypto, including references to the Trump family’s crypto involvement by the Bloomberg interviewer, the former chair rejected the framing.
“No, I don’t think so,” he said, arguing it’s more about capital markets fairness and “commonsense rules of the road,” than a “Democrat versus Republican thing.”
He added: “When you buy and sell a stock or a bond, you want to get various information,” and “the same treatment as the big investors.” That’s the fairness underpinning US capital markets.
Related: Coinbase files FOIA to see how much the SEC’s ‘war on crypto’ cost
ETFs and the drift to centralization
On ETFs, Gensler said finance “ever since antiquity… goes toward centralization,” so it’s unsurprising that an ecosystem born decentralized has become “more integrated and more centralized.”
He noted that investors can already express themselves in gold and silver through exchange‑traded funds, and that during his tenure, the first US Bitcoin futures ETFs were approved, tying parts of crypto’s plumbing more closely to traditional markets.
Gensler’s latest comments draw a familiar line: Bitcoin sits in a different bucket, while most other tokens remain, in his view, speculative and light on fundamentals.
Even out of office, his framing will echo through courts, compliance desks and allocation committees weighing BTC’s status against persistent regulatory caution of altcoins.
Magazine: Solana vs Ethereum ETFs, Facebook’s influence on Bitwise — Hunter Horsley
New figures reveal a 70% year-on-year increase in Cayman Islands foundation company registrations, with more than 1,300 on the books at the end of 2024, and over 400 new registrations already in 2025.
These structures are increasingly being used as legal wrappers for decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and as ecosystem stewards for major Web3 projects.
According to a news release from Cayman Finance, many of the world’s largest Web3 projects are now registered in the Cayman Islands, including at least 17 foundation companies with treasuries over $100 million.
Why DAOs are choosing Cayman
The Cayman foundation company has emerged as a preferred tool for DAOs that need to sign contracts, hire contributors, hold IP and interact with regulators, all while shielding tokenholders from personal liability for the DAO’s obligations.
The legal wake‑up call for many communities came in 2024 with Samuels v. Lido DAO, in which a US federal judge found that an unwrapped DAO could be treated as a general partnership under California law, exposing participants to personal liability.
The Cayman foundation company is designed to plug that gap, offering a separate legal personality and the ability to own assets and sign agreements, while giving tokenholders assurance that they are not partners by default.
Add tax neutrality, a legal framework familiar to institutional allocators and an ecosystem of companies that specialize in Web3 treasuries, and it becomes clear why more projects have quietly redomiciled their foundations to Grand Cayman.
Elsewhere, policymakers have made big promises but delivered patchwork. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly pledged to turn the United States into the “crypto capital of the planet,” but at the entity level, only a handful of states explicitly recognize DAOs as legal persons.
Switzerland remains the archetypal onshore Web3 foundation center, with the Crypto Valley region now hosting over 1,700 active blockchain firms, up more than 130% since 2020, with foundations and associations representing a growing share of new structures.
Related: Switzerland’s Crypto Valley hits $593B with 17 unicorns in 2024
From light‑touch haven to compliance player
The surge in Web3 foundations coincides with a shift in Cayman’s own regulatory posture — the arrival of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Crypto‑Asset Reporting Framework (CARF), which the Cayman Islands has now implemented via new Tax Information Authority regulations that take effect from Jan. 1, 2026.
CARF will impose due diligence and reporting duties on Cayman “Reporting Crypto‑Asset Service Providers” (entities that exchange crypto for fiat or other crypto, operate trading platforms or provide custodial services), requiring them to collect tax‑residence data from users, track relevant transactions and file annual reports with the Tax Information Authority.
Legal professionals note that CARF reporting under the current interpretation applies to relevant crypto-asset service providers, including exchanges, brokers and dealers, which likely leaves structures that merely hold crypto assets, such as protocol treasuries, investment funds, or passive foundations, off the hook.
“The key question is whether your entity, as a business, provides a service effectuating exchange transactions for or on behalf of customers, including by acting as a counterparty or intermediary or by making available a trading platform.”
In practice, that means many pure treasury or ecosystem‑steward foundations should be able to continue benefitting from Cayman’s legal certainty and tax neutrality without being dragged into full reporting status, so long as they are not in the business of running exchange, brokerage or custody services.
Magazine: EU’s privacy-killing Chat Control bill delayed — but fight isn’t over
-
Sports2 years agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports3 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Sports3 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment3 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment1 year agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024