Front pages here
Digital currency
Express
Brexiteers have told Express.co.uk why they are 100 percent opposed to central banking and digital currencies.
European Union plans for a digital euro pose a serious threat to the freedoms of people living within the bloc, UK-based opponents of the concept have claimed as they cautioned UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak against a similar move.
The warnings were issued after the European Central Bank (ECB) confirmed it was moving on with proposals to launch a digital version of the single currency, which is used in 19 EU member states (although not Britain, which uses the pound).
Discussing the plan earlier this week, ECB chief Christine Lagarde said it was important to “prepare our currency for the future” – and denied a digital euro would replace cash.
The next phase of what it termed “the digital euro project” will start in November, and will initially last two years. It will involve finalising the digital euro rulebook and “selecting providers” which could develop a digital euro platform and infrastructure, the ECB announced earlier this week.
In response, Reform UK leader Richard Tice told Express.co.uk: “We are 100 percent opposed to central banking and digital currencies.”
Expanding on his reasons, Reform UK spokesman Gawain Towler added: “This would give Governments the power to control people’s lives.
“The thing about digital currency is if you’ve got Mahatma Gandhi running it, it’s lovely.
“But modern politicians, who would sell their grandmothers to get five more points in the opinion polls, are not Mahatma Gandhi.
“I would not trust them an inch. When it comes to the digital currency itself, it isn’t evil, it’s morally inert. It’s about how it is used.”
A digital currency could be used as a mechanism for a central bank to “control the flow of money”, Mr Towler warned.
Asylum seekers
Express
A cap on the number of refugees using safe and legal routes to Britain will be introduced in January 2025, says the Home Office.
The fluctuating annual total will be “informed” by council estimates of how many they can accommodate.
Immigration minister Robert Jenrick said it will ensure “we do not take more than our public services and communities can cope with”.
He said: “The unacceptable number of people making illegal, dangerous and wholly unnecessary small boat crossings is placing an immense strain on housing and services.”
But a leading think-tank last night declared safe and legal routes should be introduced only when Channel crossings fall below 10,000 a year.
Policy Exchange said the Government should protect women and girls trapped in war zones first.
It said if Channel migration was curbed, the UK could take in 20,000 refugees every year. Those in peril could apply using a new “red route”.
This would be overseen by the Home Office, security services, diplomats and charities, Policy Exchange said. Someone could appeal on behalf of an individual in hiding abroad.
Tory Party
Mail
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak could be facing a Conservative leadership crisis, as up to 25 MPs could be set to hand in letters of no confidence to the 1922 Committee.
Two groups of disgruntled Tories – some of which are Boris Johnson‘s allies and the remainder are moderate politicians – ‘want to get rid of the PM’, The Sunday Times has reported.
The loss of the two by-elections on Thursday were seen as the final straw for those wanting to topple the PM. He has also been warned he is ‘looking general election defeat in the face’ after Keir Starmer‘s party overturned massive majorities in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire.
A Member of Parliament who spoke to The Times said it wasn’t clear who the rebels wanted to replace Sunak, but it was clear they wanted him out.
The anonymous source said: ‘I told them I didn’t think the British public would forgive us for changing prime minister again and that it would likely hurt not help our electoral fortunes.’
While Sunak faced a potentially growing challenge at home, he himself warned of a ‘contagion of conflict’ that the Israel-Hamas war risks unleashing on the Middle East during visits to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
Guardian
Conservative MPs are warning that their party risks being wiped out in the red wall by an emerging threat on its right flank, amid alarm after two disastrous byelection losses.
The right of the party is seizing on the dire results in Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth – two supposedly safe Tory seats – to demand a harder line on immigration and tax cuts designed to nullify the threat posed by Reform UK, the successor to the Brexit party.
With senior Tories stating a “battle for the soul of the party” is now under way, the right is also targeting chancellor Jeremy Hunt this weekend. They accuse him of being “captured by the Treasury” in his opposition to tax cuts which they blame for loss of loyalty among core supporters.
Reform UK only took a small share of the vote in both byelections last week. However, Tory MPs on the right who want more radical conservative policies point out that Reform’s level of support in both constituencies was greater than the Labour majority. Reform is now planning to focus its efforts on pro-Brexit seats held by the Conservatives.
It comes as Richard Tice, leader of Reform UK, told the Observer he wanted to help “smash the Tory party”. He also gave a cast-iron pledge that his party would not stand aside for the Tories in any seats, as the Brexit party did at the last election. Asked about the chances of a pre-election deal, he said: “Zero. Seriously, you could offer me five million quid and a peerage and I still wouldn’t do it.
“We’re delighted with ensuring that we have stopped the Tories from winning either of those two byelections,” he added. “They deserve to be punished. Tamworth is essentially a strong Brexit, red wall-style seat. That is where we are heavily targeting our focus because, of course, we used to be the Brexit party. So we’re pleased we’ve helped punish the Tories. There’s always more work to be done.
Israel
Mail
Israel last night vowed to cut off ‘the head of the snake’ and launch a military attack against Iran if Tehran-backed terror group Hezbollah joins the war.
In an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, Nir Barkat, Israel’s Minister of Economy, warned that Iran’s Ayatollahs will be ‘wiped off the face of the earth’ should Hezbollah, their proxy terror group in Lebanon, attack Israel.
His incendiary comments raise the grave spectre of a rapidly escalating regional conflict and come ahead of an expected Israeli ground invasion of the Gaza Strip to ‘annihilate’ Hamas.
Tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers are in position on the borders of the territory, where Hamas – which is also backed by Iran – is holding around 200 hostages seized in the violent assault on southern Israel on October 7.
But fears are growing that Israel could be forced to fight on two fronts, with Hezbollah and the Israel Defence Forces last week repeatedly trading fire across Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.
Tax
Mail
Millions of workers are facing a £75 billion stealth raid, equivalent to 9p in the pound on income tax, according to an economics think tank set up by former Prime Minister Liz Truss.
This figure is significantly higher than previous estimates of the colossal tax grab. It puts Britain on course for the highest sustained level of tax revenues as a share of the economy since the Second World War.
The Growth Commission, a group of eminent UK and overseas economists, will highlight the scale of the stealth tax in its alternative Budget in mid-November, a week before Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s official statement.
Many voters are unaware they are worse off due to the Government’s manoeuvre, because headline rates have remained the same.
The Growth Commission was set up by Truss but works independently of the ex-PM. It plans to put forward proposals to avert the ‘damaging effects’ on the economy that would be caused by ‘this very large and unanticipated rise in the income tax burden.’
The multi-billion-pound haul, which at £75 billion a year from the 2027-28 tax year would be equivalent to a 9p in the pound rise on all rates of income tax, is caused by a six-year freeze on tax allowances and thresholds.
These are normally raised each year to account for inflation and prevent a fall in people’s living standards. But the Government-imposed moratorium means millions of lower earners are being pushed into the tax system.
Millions more are being forced into higher tax bands in an effect known as ‘fiscal drag.’
Not sure if the arrival of Boris at GB TV could be classed as a “Perfect Hallet” (and embarrasment to Politics or Journalism), but I am sure that unless he makes some massive retractions from the political positions he took while Tory leader, he will not be welcomed by me and I would guess the bulk of the SCEPTIC activists many of whom look on and to GB TV and Nigel to be one of the very few (now) MSM able to get to and educate the general public at large as to Government, Establishment, MSM (with few exceptions) – lying, cheating, misleading and general withdrawal of any form of democracy and free speech to which they are entitled as a voting electorate.
I do not intend to rehearse all the retractions which Boris must undertake, readers may prefer to emphasise and expand my headings themeselves.
a) and this is first and foremost, because I consider it to be the major contribution to our economic decline
The GW crisis and Save the Planet concept, climate change is eternal and man`s carbon usage contribution to it`s increase in scale is nugatory (and that`s not even taking into account that Carbon in the atmosphere is a necessity for the continued existence of man on earth)
Oh I do agree there is pollution of our land rivers and oceans by the deposit of plastics and other nasties in them and steps must be made to control and clear them.
b) He must admit he failed to secure our borders.Particularly not sending back the illegal boat invaders
c) He must admit he sold our fishing industry down the river in EU negotiations
d) He must admit he got the NI/Southern Ireland situation all wrong and failed to support Frost in those negotiations and other negotiations properly
e) He must admit that he got the whole business of Covid wrong, particularly allowing the silencing of sceptics who were trying to draw attention to official inconsistencies and untruths, not just to the day to day lies of Big Pharma, but even to the fact that the Nuremburg Convention or rules said that if remedies were available (Hydrochloroquin,etc) then vaccine use would be illegal (obviously I need help regarding the ins and outs of this point – but I hope you get my drift)
f) He must admit the WEF is an ENEMY
g) HE must admit the WHO is an ENEMY
h) He must admit the EU were our ENEMY at the time of BREXIT and probably still are.
i) He must admit he and his government have run down all our Defence Services (and ceded too much to the EU) to the detriment of his and his Government`s Prime Duty to the Realm
Then if he does all this (in writing) Nigel should allow him the chance to rehabilitate.
Don`t know what anybody else thinks????
The country is financially bust. Yet politicians want to borrow ever more to fun d vote buying handouts.
We are on the road to ruin. The question is when will it strike, can’t be long now?