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UK Reform Party has taken large donations from cryptocurrency companies. Reform leader Nigel Farage has received a 5 million pound gift from a cryptocurrency firm. What does this mean for cryptocurrency regulation in the UK as a world financial center, if Reform wins a general election and appoints the next Governor of the Bank of England when Andrew Bailey retires in 2028. This is discussed in The Guardian. The banking system of the US, UK and large countries was set up over many years and currency is only issued by a central bank with the financial backing of the nation. Cryptocurrency cannot on the basis of technology take that role without posing risks and destabilizing the financial system. The gradual splitting of society by the information economy, neglect of infrastructure, pharmaceutical pricing, banking speculation as in 2009 crisis, have been eroding some of the basic structures of democracy for the last two decades from within.  The wars in the Middle East policies, and the open borders migration policies, were effects from outside. What this has led to is counter to what one would expect. To fight open borders and the marginalization of some parts of the working class DJT Republicans have used whatever resources were available at the time in the 2024 presidential election. The cryptocurrency firms used this in opportunistic fashion to affect regulation of this currency by supporting the reelection bid of DJT in 2024 by making large donations. This has led to less regulation of cryptocurrency firms. Is this in the best interests of the Nation? Will this destabilize the banking system in ways that have happened before in the deregulation of banks before the 2009 financial crisis? In Britain a new Bank of England governor will be appointed after Andrew Bailey's term expires in 2028. Reform party in UK if elected as government would appoint the next Governor of the Bank of England. Reform's growing popularity is a result of Conservatives and Labour failing to take action on open borders, asylum hotels, and migration policy, following an ECHR code of rights that is inappropriate to such migration. What this means is that unexpected things happen as a result. Cyrptocurrency risks of destabilizing the banking system increase as a result of failure of parties on migration. This could be more destabilizing for Britain because of its role as a financial centre than the industrialized  economies such as Germany, China, and industrializing economies such as India. It poses risks in the US yet Federal Reserve Governor Walsh can exercise his own judgement about cryptocurrency and Congress can exercise oversight, the large banks can act to show the risks of destabilizing that cryptocurrency can pose. For Britain it is particularly dangerous as the US is also an industrialized power compared to Britain's focus on finance alone. Andrew Bailey can ignore lobbying by Reform Party in 2026 (Farage met with the Governor of the Bank of England), yet what happens if Reform appoints the next Governor in 2028? These are questions Britain needs to ponder. It is also why Andy Burnham is Britain's last chance to get things right on migration to the point that the British people feel good and proud of their heritage and history, British neighborhoods across the country feel safe and secure, and Britain shifts to reindustrialize its economy with partners in China and India, the European Union, and the US. A former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, Sir Charlie Bean told the BBC about donations of Christopher Harbonne, who has a 13% ownership interest in cryptocurrency firm,Tether. "Stablecoins are only stable if they have the appropriate regulatory environment… But there is right now an unsurprising regulatory race to the bottom amid the potential for greater profits." He added: "When funds are coming from major shareholders of such large financial institutions, there is a clear potential conflict of interest here, for example, in the appointment of a new Bank of England governor. Transparency is one solution." ...

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Jens Spahn, CDU leader and minister in Merkel's government says it is OK for Germany to leave the European Commission for Human Rights if it is slow to grasp that refugee status is about protection and also about how many asylum claims the people of a country are comfortable with. Denmark, Poland, Hungary and Austria, the UK and the US, and many Germans now feel this way and feel unease at the high levels of migration asylum, illegal and other that they face. Migration to Germany slowed but has picked up again. Failed states, economic distress, civil wars,  in Africa and Latin America have led to illegal immigration from Syria, Libya, North Africa, Arab world, Afghanistan, Central American countries and Venezuela. Is Asylum automatic? Are there decisions that have to be made in Europe and America if whole states are mismanaged or face climate distress or gang conflict leading to mass migration? These questions have to be debated and not decided by a Merkel at whim or some other leader. ...

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Drop to 22,000 from 127,000 for irregular migration after border checks in Germany under chancellor Merz of the CDU coalition. Family reunification is ended for subsidiary migration. Step by step Germany is regaining control of the country and taking responsible actions to prevent extreme responses and protecting democracy from every source of danger.

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German Foreign Minister Wadephul is interviewed by Nina Haase of the DW.com. She asks him what he thinks of Marco Rubio's speech at the Munich Security Conference in Feb. 2026. Wadephul says this is also the policy of Germany, that the US and Germany have a lot of common ground. Rubio spoke of cultural bonds, of Christianity, and of the common ground shared with Europe. Wadephul sees a lot of positive ground which he calls, is saying to Germany- we did it in the past in the cold War with the Iron Curtain coming down in the 1950's and that was a success including reunification of Germany. Now as Wadephul sees it the US is saying "lets do it again." What about climate and Ukraine. Wadephul says on Ukraine Germany is in agreement that more pressure needs to be put on Russia, including on India in negotiations to reduce funding of Russia. On climate he says that the US is saying- be flexible which is what Germany agrees with. On migration Wadephul says other European governments are taking the approach to migration the the US and Germany agree with. ...

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Germany has ordered order controls under new Interior Minister Dobrindt. Merz says such border controls are needed at its borders until European borders are secured. A Berlin administrative court similar to courts in the US issued a contrary ruling in the case of three Somalis from Poland to be processed on June 2, 2025. This is weeks, months  after incidents of attacks in Hamburg and other cities when the public resources are already severely strained from migrants.

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Germany's leading candidate for chancellor Merz gets an exemption for Germany to EU Common European Asylum System (CEAS) asylum laws for National Security reasons. The goal is to tight Schengen border controls to keep out illegal migrants.  EU president Von der Leyen calls Merz action on CEAS  asylum laws "innovative solutions." Germany takes U turn on asylum law as public opinion shifts with a series of crimes committed by illegal migrants allowed to stay in Germany including car rampages through crowds on streets, most recently in Munich. A sense of fatigue in EU with illegal migrants and a desire for normalcy, the old way of life, and secure neighborhoods and urban spaces. It is now seen in CDU as Merkel's policy errors and failure of judgement in letting in a flood of illegal migration.

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German Foreign Ministry is to take up question of dependence on China in 2026, and a commission will look into it. Yet this comes 2, 3 or 4 years too late. Germany is scrambling to develop it's foreign policy. German Defense officials in the military say they no longer have 24 contact with their US counterparts. Germany is pulling Britain and France with it to counter any signs of weakness in Europe, so that the three countries can act as a counter weight to the US, and to Russia allied with China. Merz is now called the foreign policy chancellor. So much has changed from the Merkel days which are years that were wasted in infrastructure, digital, foreign policy, and migration policies that make sense for people's ease of living. Germans may have underestimated Merz in the way they overestimated Merkel, lacking the clear view of what the future requires from Germany in a world filled with China, India, Brazil and the other nations of Europe, and the US, a world which requires confidence and investment. ...

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Common sense comes to the German Border with Merz and the national emergency rule at the border, just as has happened under DJT at the US Border. May 8-25 turned back at Germany's borders with 9 European countries about 100 persons- success of national emergency rule at the German Border. This relieves not only pressure on public services in German towns and cities, it also removes a source of anxiety in the people who experienced political divisions and random attacks in public spaces from migrants. It also removes the threats of extreme factions in politics that have used the migrant crisis for exacerbating political divisions. Merkel's policy was not workable from the beginning and based on assumptions that were not correct as Germany and the EU could do more to improve the modernization and improving health and education, industry and agriculture inside Asia, North Africa to help the people in these regions than by taking in migrants. Who has ever suggested migration to Europe or the US  as a solution to the problems of China and India in the 1930's and 1940's, from wars and even famines. The right solutions of decolonization turning back invasions into the 1940's, and providing technology and capital for modernization after 1950 and accelerating this after 2000 have created two modernized nations of 2 billion people. ...

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This report in The Economist magazine shows that Germany no longer runs the European Union in the way it has previously. During the austerity crisis with bank bailouts in many countries in southern Europe Germany played a key role. Merkel was perceived as the dominant partner in the relationships with French presidents Sarkozy and Hollande. Britain perceived Germany's increased dominance during that period as a threat. Brexit Leave campaign played on these fears and a diminished British role. Merkel's handling of the migration crisis also played into the hands of Brexit Leave campaigners with poster pictures of migrants crossing European borders in large numbers on British buses. Merkel changed course on migration policies and gradually reversed it to where Germany no longer welcomes economic migrants preferring that they stay in their home countries with German aid to these countries. Merkel's CDU is now facing challenges from a fragmented electorate with many parties and its own diminished role. Gradually the perception of Germany's role is now also reversing. Even though the new president of the European Commission is Ursula Leyen from Germany, there are more Spaniards, French, Italians and Belgians, work in the commission and parliament than Germans, More Director General roles are held by Italy. Germans in Brussels also do not take directions from Berlin, and are actually more Francophile and federalist in their thinking. Germans opinion is more diverse and plural than the idea of a dominant German view. Greens in Germany are coming first in polls showing how much is changing. These multilayers and different strands of thinking make Germany introverted as it is at present. Leyen is seen as more European in outlook and a more European Germany may be the result than a German Europe.  This may play a part in any new elections in Britain or a second referendum on Brexit as polls suggest there is a shift in opinion in Britain underway. ...

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Nigel Farage in The Times of London, August 23 2025. The Times of London on why some of Farage's ideas need to be heard to stop illegal migrants and asylum hotels that are increasingly unpopular with the British public. Tony Abbott of Australia pursued an independent policy on migration that makes it clear illegal migration had no place in Australia. Dnemark's socialist prime minister has done the same for Denmark. And chancellor Merz of Germany has taken action on the same principle that illegal migration has no place in Germany.  

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This Editorial in the WSJ says Obama's complete inaction in Syria led to problems later on. It destabilized the entire Middle East in a way that Reagan destabilized the region with intervention in the region. Russian unease with NATO at its borders was not sensed in US and EU- and no efforts to address these concerns to reach an agreement to create the right kind of environment for peaceful coexistence that is only now being beginning to be seen as needed. Other serious consequences were the migration from the Middle East to Europe after Arab Spring in 2011- migration to Greece and Italy and onwards to Hungary, Austria and Germany. During the Merkel years little was done to identify and act on the sources of the problem- instability in the Middle East and Africa and dealing with the problem at the source. This led to AfD in Germany taking up the unease felt by the German people at the size of the illegal migration. This led in ricocheting manner to migration fears in Britain and Reform UK taking up the unease felt by the  British people.  This problem of migration found new sources in 2024- Venezuela and Central America for the US and cross Channel migration in the UK and again it's size stirred up unease- because of the size of illegal migration in the millions. ...

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Pop and Troinanovski look at the tough negotiations ahead for Brexit and describe Theresa May as a experienced negotiator. Belgian Interior Minister Jambon says she has "a lot of policy knowledge" and moved in the direction of European cooperation. Germany Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich says May has a very clear idea of her objective, uses clear language, and is consistent. Yet much depends on other factors including elections in Germany and France in 2017. For France and Hollande the issue becomes particularly filled with implications with the need not to give the far right and Marie Le Pen any advantage by making concessions in the negotiations. German chancellor Merkel is also very clear from her perspective on migration and free movement in the European Union, a point on which she was tested by other Eastern European countries during the refugee crisis. Merkel made this clear that it was Britain's choice of direction in future relations- "Whoever wants free access to the European single market must in return accept all of the basic freedoms, including the free movement of people." Because of domestic politics in Germany and France and in the rest of the European Union, these negotiations could drag on for a very long time. The only positive sign for both sides is that May is known as a responsible politician after 6 years as Britain's Home Secretary, holding one of the top positions in the cabinet. As Merkel's popularity has recovered with about 55% popular support and the decline in the support for the AfD in recent poll cited by DW.com, Merkel may be prepared for a long negotiation to keep the original idea and spirit of the founders of the European Union alive and strong. ...

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Germany holds the presidency of the G-20 in 2017. This provides chancellor Merkel an opportunity to provide German leadership on many issues. The ministerial conferences will lead to the summit in Hamburg in July 2017. Concern about the incoming Trump administration views on trade in international circles gives Germany and China a larger role in the meetings for 2017. Germany plans to put more focus on the real causes of migration and flight from poor countries and war zones.

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The mood for migration and for illegal migration has soured in Denmark, Netherlands, France and Germany. A series of attacks by migrants in UK, France, Germany has soured the mood for migration. A recent attack this week killing 2 National Guardsmen in Washington DC continues this trend in the US and has soured mood in the US and Europe for migrants.  The UK Home Office says-110,000 sought asylum in the UK Jan to Sept 2025, and  36,000 are temporarily housed in hotels up 2% from 2025. This is a big issue in the UK tying up state funding for illegal migrants in hotels and creating a climate of uncertainty in UK neighborhoods where such hotels are located. Nor is this an issue in which the Conservatives Party acted firmly as there were 56,000 migrants housed in hotels in September 2023. Labour Party entered government in July 2024 and has adopted the policy of Denmark under Shabana Mohamed as UK Home Secretary to stop and remove migrants from the UK. ...

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Christmas market running car into a crowd on Dec 21 in Magdeburg pushes security as the main issue with migration not attracting workers for labor shortages. All parties are against migraton today in Germany. Professor Hohne of the Technical University in Chemnitz says

"With that, other facets of migration are pushed to the background — such as, for example, how to address Germany's labor shortage or attract skilled workers. I fear that the attack in Magdeburg will further strengthen this bias."

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The economy, wages and cost of living, the failures in infrastructure and at Deutsche Bahn, migration or remigration are issues in Germany. During periods when there are Christmas market attacks in recent years  remigration has emerged as an issue. Migration is no longer the issue in Germany as it was during high levels of migration under Merkel following the wars in Syria and Iraq, unrest in North African countries such as Tunisia with Arab Spring.  The policies of CDU's Merkel tapping into potential migrant labor to meet shortages of manpower in the economy have been reversed by CDU and SPD+ Greens since 2020. Musk wades into this issue only to find Christian Democrats, Free Democrats cautioning him that he lacks understanding of what is happening. Remigration is now essentially accepted by the Social Democrats, and Christian Demcorats, advocated by Wagenknect Left and AfD right parties alike, leaving little room for AfD to grow except from unease.  CDU Merz polls at 30-36% but lacks answers to the Ukraine war. AfD is at about 20%. Wagenkenecht has taken positions opposing immmigration and migrants similar to Socialist parties in Denmark, which means most of the European Union across all parties have reversed position on migration similar to Labor in Britain under Keir Starmer. ...

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Vance calls for hearing different voices in Europe to be heard. The anti-migration parties and voices were excluded by the conference chair Christoph Heusgen, who advised Merkel on foreign policy, and did little to prevent the mass migration into Germany and other countries. Vance called for the all voices to be heard even those which one disagreed. He said European countries are not as brittle as they think they are that all voices could not be heard and all views debated. Vance expressed his own view that people in Europe and the US were feeling endangered  after a decade of mass migration supported by politicians and parties in Europe. These politicians had not received support for their action at the ballot box said Vance, including with Brexit and in US with the election of DJT.

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BBC's Europe Editor Katya Adler talks to EU officials and gives this assessment of how the situation in Britain after the elections looks from the European Union. The elections in France with pro-EU Macron winning with a large majority, the increasing support for Angela Merkel in Germany, the drubbing for the Five Star Movement in Italy, all point to increasing confidence in the EU, and willingness to let Britain sort its mess out while the EU focusses on more pressing issues. Adler calls the first day of talks on Brexit a Mad Hatters Tea Party, showing how Britain is seen in the EU as having a huge complicated mess to sort out. British politicians are seen from the outside as having ruffled up the electorate on migration, the European Court of Justice and other issues, just to make their own points and for their own ends, not necessarily having the best interests of Britain in mind.

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Much of the debate in Germany today is around the topic of reunification, was it good or bad for Germany, and why there is an issue of a separate identity in the East. Most East Germans feel they live in a separate country with a separate identity. This issue has social cultural and political consequences, says the Economist.    The CDU is increasingly facing questions about how it has turned out for East Germany. It is losing votes to the AfD in Saxony, Thuringia, and other places in the east. The migration crisis in 2015-2016 created new fault lines. When the Integration minister in a government in Saxony, which includes east German city of Leipzig, talked to people in her state why Germany was helping refugees, she was told to first integrate East Germans.  East Germans do not like resources being wasted on refugees when they feel left out themselves in their own country. After reunification of Germany by chancellor Kohl in 1990 about 8500 companies in the east were privatised or liquidated leading to a loss of jobs in old industries such as mining. Many of these older people ended up in odd jobs and then on Hartz IV, skimpy unemployment benefits. At unification 1 million people moved to the west from the east, predominantly younger people and predominantly women.  Over time one fourth of the population in the east 18-30 years moved to the west, two thirds of them women. Rural areas especially hit hard, with tax revenues slumping, shops and schools closed. Some estimates are that 80% of east Germans were out of work at one point. The humiliation their parents felt is only now being discussed as children in the east talk to their parents about what happened and the hardships their parents suffered 25 years ago. Was unification done the right way is a topic for discussion today. Today the east is much older than the west. Since 1990 over 60's increased by 1.1 million even as the overall population dropped by 2.2 million. In future some districts in the east will have 4 funerals for every birth say forecasters. So what could have been done differently in 1990 so that East Germans did not end up feeling like a "colonized people" by a biased western exploitative culture that portrayed them as culturally inferior and with very little that the west could learn from. Today it is said that the government agency Treuhand that handled closure of businesses could have moved slowly. The 1:1 transfer of west german currency for east german currency was to make east german companies uncompetitive overnight, and should have mitigating plans to tackle the problems of keeping these businesses in operation to keep local jobs. A new constitution and economic plans could have been written, a transition period for such a constitution and economic plan be put in place, so that changes could be studied and plans made to reduce the negative effects.  Culturally there was something the east did better. It had a culture of social solidarity that could have provided lessons for the west.  The good aspects in the east such as respect for women and encouraging them to work outside the home, free child care, the welfare state protecting vulnerable groups, could have lessons for the west to emulate and adopt practices. This would have given easterners a sense of self-respect as in some ways the German Democratic Republic (GDR) as the country was called in the east, had aspects that the west could learn from. For this to happen west Germans need to change their views- half of them see the reunification as a success, two thirds of east Germans see it as a failure culturally, and socially, and wrought with the economic impact of sudden shift in population and business, and loss of most productive young people to the west. ...

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Healthcare, climate change, pensions and social benefits, are three issues uppermost in the minds of German voters. Three million new young voters most of them only about 2 years old when Merkel started 16 years in office, look for change. They are well informed and for these young voters climate change is the most important issue. DW.com shows three voters and how they plan to vote. One voter has cast a mail in ballot for The Greens party. The second voter will vote for the Greens. Both because of climate change concerns. The third voter Thurid says her mother is a geriatric nurse and is not vaccinated. She is vaccinated but had talks with her mother and understands her worries about vaccination. She will vote for the Free Democrats because they oppose compulsory vaccination. The three leading parties for young voters are the Greens party, the Free Democrats, followed by the Social Democrats all in the range of 16-18% of support. The Greens have sent out 2 million brochures to voters. Out of 60 million voters in a German population of 80  million, 3 million is only 5% of the vote. What makes a difference is that it is consistent with the general direction of voters young and old, all looking for change in Germany as the CDU party attracts only about 20% or one fifth of German voters. Social Democrats Scholz is way ahead of Christian Democrats Laschet in how voters view each candidate. Will German voters be well informed enough to make a decision based on their desire for change after 16 years of Merkel or will the CDU bringing back in the last days of the campaign the old fears that the communist Left party would somehow find its way into the government using the Greens as a way in- this is a question for German voters. In1994 during the Cold War with Soviets Kohl used this to keep the Social Democrats out and Greens out and formed a coalition with the FDP. Yet today Merkel has grown close to both Russia and China and away from the Western alliance in a way that was unimaginable under Adenauer who helped build the new Federal Republic of Germany after the war. Merkel refuses to even immediately accept a call from a new US president Biden, American president who is closest in style and temperament to Harry Truman who faced off the Soviets in Berlin in 1948.  The FDP opposes a wealth tax or any form of taxes in which the wealthier pay a fair share of what is needed to build crumbling infrastructure in Germany neglected in the Merkel years. In Germany social and economic disparities have grown during the pandemic with poverty increasing during the pandemic as has happened throughout Europe and the world. The US is already committing to increase taxes for the upper incomes. This is where voters have a choice- do nothing with infrastructure, health or climate change or do something by increasing taxes. The choice is now before the German people.  With this question comes a choice for western civilization, with the recent election in the US, and two elections in Germany and then France. Will it look with optimism to the future or will it huddle up in a deeply cautious and slightly pessimistic view of the world that is embedded in Angela Merkel's cautious vision that ended up only responding to crises- some self inflicted as in migration policy, and even self inflicted in tackling euro problems created in the euro currency's faulty design. In fiscal policy as in migration policy Merkel has reversed her position- by supporting European solidarity. Will Germans vote for optimism or never ending caution? Are lessons learned?     ...

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Preliminary results show the SPD Social Democrats leading in Germany. The SPD had 25.7% of the vote, ahead of Merkel's CDU at 24.1%. This is the worst showing for the CDU in German elections. The environmentalist Greens Party came in at 14.8% of the vote. The pro-business FDP Free Democrats came in at 11.5%, the far right AfD at 10.3%, and the socialist Left party at 4.9%. Parties calling for big infrastructure investments in Germany with tax increases emerged as big winners reflecting the public mood in Germany after CDU led coalitions with SPD for the last eight years focused on the eurozone crisis and opened migration into Germany, while neglecting much needed investment in broken infrastructure. Both the SPD and Greens are calling for big investments and taking on additional borrowing to do so. They now have a combined 42% of the vote, and 47% when combined with the socialist Left. The Afd with 10% remains mainly a fringe party - and primarily a result of Merkel's decision to open migration from war torn Arab countries which she later reversed, and from from the CDU's failure to tackle social and economic problems of eastern Germany.    ...

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As the Afghanistan conflict has receded into the background in American minds and the U.S. has become more careful to avoid foreign entanglements, 80 warring factions including the Taliban and the government in Kabul are meeting for talks in Doha, in Gulf state of Qatar. The effort is designed to settle the dispute and settle on an Islamic legal system for anew post war country that bases itself on Islamic values, yet ensures women's rights within the framework of Islamic values. There is an explicit urgency to shed some of the bitterness and the scars from the war once and for all.

Germany's migration crisis was made worse by economic migration from Afghanistan and North Africa in addition to the migration from war torn areas. Germany is now hosting these meetings along with Qatar, understanding the effects of such conflicts reach well beyond distant lands.