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Rachel Reeves will face further questions this morning after being accused of presiding over a manifesto-busting budget that rose taxes by £26bn.

The chancellor has acknowledged she is “asking ordinary people to pay a little bit more” following her series of announcements yesterday, including extending the freeze on income tax bands.

But when challenged by Sky News political editor Beth Rigby that this amounted to a breach of Labour’s manifesto, she argued it didn’t because the rates themselves had not changed.

Ms Reeves said the party’s election document was “very clear” about not raising the rates of income tax, national insurance, and VAT.

But she added: “If you’re asking does this have a cost for working people? I acknowledge it does.”

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Beth Rigby asks Reeves: How can you stay in your job?

The chancellor – who will be questioned on Mornings With Ridge And Frost from 7am – is set to inflict a record tax burden upon Britain.

Her other measures include:

• A “mansion tax” on properties worth over £2m;

• New taxes on the gambling industry to raise more than £1bn;

• A new mileage tax for electric vehicles from April 2028;

• Slashing the amount you can save in a tax-free cash ISA from £20,000 to £12,000, except for over-65s;

And in a move that will prove particularly unpopular with savers, people paying into a pension under salary sacrifice schemes will face national insurance on contributions above £2,000.

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What is a ‘salary sacrifice’?

Read more:
Budget key points at a glance
What the budget means for you

The tax rises – which were published by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) ahead of time in an unprecedented blunder – are mostly needed to pay for increased welfare spending.

Ms Reeves announced the abolition of the two-child benefit cap, expected to lift 450,000 children out of poverty.

You should resign, says Badenoch

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch accused her of “hiking taxers on workers, pensioners, and savers to pay for handouts”, claiming the budget will increase benefits for 560,000 families by £5,000 on average.

Ms Reeves had sought to cut the welfare bill earlier this year, but the government was forced into a damaging retreat after backbench Labour MPs rebelled.

“What she could have chosen today is to bring down welfare spending and get more people into work,” Ms Badenoch told the Commons on Wednesday.

“Instead, she has chosen to put a tax up to tax after tax.”

She called on the chancellor to resign.

From our experts:
Ed Conway: This was a historic budget
Beth Rigby: Labour’s credibility might be shot
Sam Coates: It’s not clear if Reeves will survive

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How will the budget impact your money?

Under fire from left and right

Labour MPs cheered raucously at the two-child benefit cap announcement, but one backbencher told Sky News: “We are effectively doing government by consent of the PLP, if not the cabinet – a bad place to be.

“The Tories did it for years, and it can only lead to the death of us at the general election.”

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, meanwhile, warned Ms Reeves cannot “tax her way to growth”, while Reform’s Nigel Farage described the budget as an “assault on ambition and saving”.

Greens leader Zack Polanski criticised the budget for not raising taxes on the “super wealthy”.

Read more: A town that feels betrayed

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What does the public think?

Sky’s Sophy Ridge and Wilfred Frost won’t be the only ones putting the chancellor under more scrutiny today – two influential economic think tanks will also give their full verdicts.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and the left-leaning Resolution Foundation have already been critical in their immediate verdicts, with the former describing the budget as “spend now, pay later”, with tax rises being increasingly relied upon over time.

It also accused Ms Reeves of breaching Labour’s manifesto commitments on tax.

The Resolution Foundation warned of a hit to living standards because of Ms Reeves’s measures, though she has said policies aimed at cutting household energy bills and freezing rail fares and prescription charges will help people.

She also claimed her decisions would help cut NHS waiting lists and the national debt.

Also facing more questions today is the head of the OBR, as he remains under pressure over how its forecast of the chancellor’s announcements were published ahead of time.

Follow live updates on the fallout from the budget in the Politics Hub and Money through the day.

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Wemade rallies partners for KRW stablecoin push after years of setbacks

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Wemade rallies partners for KRW stablecoin push after years of setbacks

Blockchain gaming company Wemade is pushing for a Korean won-based stablecoin ecosystem, forming a Global Alliance for KRW Stablecoins (GAKS) with Chainalysis, CertiK and SentBe as founding partners. 

Wemade announced that the alliance will support StableNet, a dedicated mainnet for Korean won-backed stablecoins, with publicly released code and a consortium model that aims to meet institutional and regulatory requirements. 

Within the partnership, Chainalysis will integrate threat detection and real-time monitoring, while CertiK will handle node validation and security audits. 

Money transfer company SentBe will contribute licensed remittance infrastructure across 174 countries. This allows the KRW stablecoin initiative to operate within South Korea’s regulated digital asset ecosystem. 

The launch marks a coordinated effort from Wemade to reposition itself as a long-term infrastructure builder after years of setbacks, including token delistings and a bridge hack that undermined investor confidence. 

Source: Wemix

Wemade’s rocky road and stablecoin pivot

Wemade’s push into stablecoin infrastructure follows a turbulent seven-year expansion from a traditional gaming studio into one of South Korea’s most ambitious blockchain builders. 

The company launched its blockchain division in 2018 and expanded it from a four-employee team into a 200-person operation. Still, the rapid growth collided with the country’s evolving regulatory landscape, forcing the company to limit its play-to-earn (P2E) offerings to overseas markets. 

Much of the pressure faced by Wemade centered on its native WEMIX token. In 2022, South Korean exchanges delisted the asset, citing discrepancies between its reported and actual supply. This resulted in a price drop of over 70% for the token. 

The token suffered another major blow in 2024, when a bridge exploit resulted in 9 billion won (about $6 million) in losses. The company’s delayed disclosure attracted scrutiny and eroded further investor trust, leading to a second wave of token delistings. 

The stablecoin pivot marks another attempt from Wemade to reset the narrative around the company and reposition its technology toward a more compliant and infrastructure-focused use case. 

In a Korea Times report, the company said that it’s developing a KRW-focused stablecoin mainnet while avoiding becoming the stablecoin issuer itself. It’s positioning itself as a technology partner and consortium builder for other South Korean companies. 

Related: Upbit hit with $36M Solana hot wallet breach day after $10B Naver deal

South Korea’s post-Terra regulatory landscape

The Terra collapse in 2022 continues to cast a shadow over South Korea’s digital asset policy, leaving lawmakers and regulators particularly sensitive to risks associated with stablecoins. 

The Financial Services Commission (FSC) and the Bank of Korea (BOK) have taken uncompromising stances since 2022, pushing for stricter liquidity, oversight and disclosure rules as they work on an upcoming stablecoin framework focused on risk-cointainment. 

The central bank also advocated giving banks a leading role in stablecoin issuance, helping to mitigate risks to financial and foreign exchange stability.

The BOK warned that allowing non-banking institutions to take the lead in stablecoin issuance could undermine existing regulations.