Reform threat presents us with ‘fight of our lives’, admits top minister
Sir Keir Starmer sent his chief cabinet “fixer” to attempt to calm down jittery Labour MPs in a mutinous mood after last week’s elections drubbing by Reform.
But instead of calming nerves, cabinet office minister Pat McFadden warned Labour were now facing “the fight of our lives” against Nigel Farage and his party.
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Rebel MPs claimed Mr McFadden, who spoke to up to 100 Labour MPs in a Commons committee room for an hour, was acting as a “human shield” for the embattled prime minister.
The showdown came as the fury of Labour MPs over winter fuel payment cuts reached a crescendo, after Sir Keir emphatically rejected demands for a U-turn.
The emergency meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, called at just a few hours’ notice, was officially billed by the party’s high command as a briefing on their “plan for change”.
But it was also intended to head off a mutiny by Labour MPs after shock victories by Reform UK last week in county council polls, mayoral elections and the Runcorn and Helsby by-election.
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Key moments from local elections
No sign of a winter fuel U-turn
Some Labour MPs were privately critical of Sir Keir for not facing his backbench critics. Others stayed away, claiming the meeting was pointless because the government was not listening to their concerns.
As a result, many of the party’s most high-profile rebels on winter fuel payments, benefit cuts and other issues were absent. Veteran left-winger Diane Abbot attended but left before the end, refusing to talk to journalists.
Many of those attending were younger MPs elected last July and so the mood was not as acrimonious as the leadership might have feared. Mr McFadden was applauded at the end of the meeting.
Speaking with Treasury ministers Darren Jones and James Murray alongside him but no Rachel Reeves, who was visiting Scotland, Mr McFadden gave no hint of concessions on controversial policies.
Read more:
How Farage is flirting with Labour’s loyal voters
The choice facing Labour in face of Reform threat
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Starmer defends winter fuel cuts
‘Battle for the future’
Instead, he launched an attack on Mr Farage’s Reform, which senior cabinet ministers acknowledge is now a real threat to Labour and may become the party’s main rivals.
According to a government source present at the meeting, Mr McFadden began his speech by saying: “The big point I want to make to you is that a new fight is taking shape.
“It’s a fight between our values and a nationalist politics of the right. It’s a battle for the very future and the heart and soul of our country.”
Mr McFadden was said to have criticised Dame Andrea Jenkyns, the new mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, who in her victory speech vowed Reform would “reset Britain to its glorious past”.
Pat McFadden gave a speech on cybersecurity this morning. Pic: PA
‘We have to win’
“That is not our project, and it won’t be our project,” Mr McFadden said, as he said Labour was focused on the country’s “glorious future”.
He added: “Labour is always at its best when we look to the future. This is the fight of our lives, this is the generational fight in this new political era.
“I want to tell you we have to take on this new fight for the future – and we have to win.”
Mr McFadden addressed Labour MPs after Sir Keir dismayed many Labour MPs in a clash with Tory leader Kemi Badenoch at PMQs by refusing to admit he was wrong to remove winter fuel payments from millions of pensioners.
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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