Industry stakeholders believe that the UK elections will not derail crypto plans

• The Labor Party is the favorite to win the next UK general election.

• Regardless of who is elected, cryptocurrency policy should continue to develop as it has so far, said Adam Jackson, policy director at Innovate Finance.

The UK election will not derail the progress the country has made when it comes to regulating the cryptocurrency sector, industry stakeholders have told CoinDesk.

The date of the elections has not yet been announced, but it is expected to take place in the country this year. The ruling Conservative Party, which has been in government for almost 14 years, has ushered in a series of cryptocurrency-related measures since it was first elected in May 2010. The party aimed to make the country one crypto hub in 2022 and has since introduced a account of the markets to allow cryptocurrencies to be regulated as a financial activity by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Now the Conservatives have promised to implement legislation to help stablecoins and staking in the coming weeks – before the next elections. Many believe this is a realistic goal.

The country needs secondary legislation that would formally task the FCA with regulating cryptocurrencies, including stablecoins, Adam Jackson, policy director at Innovate Finance, said in an interview.

“This is what the government said they would do,” Jackson said. “We have not heard otherwise as to why this is not feasible. So, all things being equal, they should have those powers by the time of the national election.”

Laura Navaratnam, head of UK policy at the Crypto Council for Innovation, agrees that the Conservative government is “definitely” on track at the moment, adding that the country’s regulators, the Bank of England and the FCA, have also gone after you publish discussion papers on stablecoins.

“There is always a risk, at any level of political turbulence, that some of these things could slow down,” Navaratnam told CoinDesk in an interview.

To know more: UK minister says government only has time to implement stablecoin and staking legislation

Work

The Conservatives may still have a couple of months before the election is announced, but once that happens they will have to clash with their opposition party and could lose power. Currently the favorite to win is the Labor Party, according to an Ipsos survey which surveyed over 1,000 people in April. The poll shows that 44% of voters intend to vote Labor while only 19% intend to vote Conservative.

The UK recently hosted a local election that showed a strong swing towards the Labor Party and marked major losses for the Conservatives. The work succeeded obtain 1,158 seats in local councilors and gained 186 while the Conservatives gained just 515 and lost 474, also falling behind the Liberal Democrat party, BBC data showed.

The story continues

To know more: UK local elections show a pro-Labour shift with a general election pending

The size of the majority in an election matters, Jackson said.

“I think for any party, the smaller the majority, the more limited they will be in what they will do in some of these areas,” Jackson said.

So far the Labor Party has indicated it wants to make the UK a hub for securities tokenisation in its plan to financial sector. Tokenization is the process of create a digital representation of a real thing including financial assets. A tokenization regime is something that people in the country have experienced calling for.

“We are pleased to see that Labor has committed to helping transform the UK into a global hub for digital tokenisation as part of the party’s policies for the financial services sector,” CryptoUK said in February.

However, the Labor Party has not said much about how it plans to regulate cryptocurrencies.

“So I think the question we have is, you know, what is Labour’s approach to this? It’s not a question they can ignore,” Jackson said.

Labor said in its report that this was only the “first phase in outlining Labour’s vision for the future of British financial services”, indicating that more information could be forthcoming.

“I think there is a lot of time between now and the election and so I don’t expect them to provide any further details at this point,” said Varun Paul, senior director and business head for CBDC and financial market infrastructure at Fireblocks. “I’m satisfied – I don’t think digital assets are proving to be a political hot potato at the moment, I think we’re lucky in the UK that it hasn’t become a political battleground like it has in the US”

Some lawmakers in the United States have called for a ban on a central bank digital currency others want the country to conduct a CBDC pilot project. Meanwhile, across the pond, Labor indicated in its report that it intends to support the Bank of England’s work on the digital pound.

“We should see a fairly stable approach to financial services and regulation and things going in the same direction,” Jackson said.

To know more: The Labor Party wants the UK to become a hub for tokenisation of securities and advance work on the digital pound

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