Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister and close ally of the prime minister, Keir Starmer, told MPs on Monday he thought there was a case for preventing crypto donations given how hard it was to trace their source.
His comments come two months after Nigel Farage announced his Reform UK party would become the first in British politics to accept donations in bitcoin, mirroring a similar move made by Donald Trump in the 2024 US presidential election.
Where do the Government stand on the regulation of cryptocurrencies? Is it the case that crypto exchanges are being encouraged to base themselves outside the country so that we do not have to face up to these regulatory questions and responsibilities? Washing our hands of this issue is not good enough if the result is that those exchanges are based abroad and are beyond our reach in regulatory terms, without its making any difference to their ability to operate in the UK market. We have to be alive to the dangers of fraud and money laundering through new methods and innovations, and regulation has to keep pace with these market innovations. Can the Minister assure the House that the Government are telling the financial regulators that crypto exchanges that operate in the UK should be regulated in the UK? Is that the Government’s position?