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Cyndie Roberson was retired and unaware of the crypto industry until a Bitcoin mining operation moved to her small town in North Carolina in 2021. The locals banded together and managed to ban new Bitcoin developments in their area - but the existing one was allowed to stay and the bitterness of the fight made her decide to move south, to Gilmer County in Georgia.There, Ms Roberson has campaigned against crypto mining in a region that is solidly pro-Republican. In the county where she lives, she says that around 1,000 people came to a public meeting to oppose a mine, which then wasn't allowed to operate.

Just north of Gilmer, the Fannin County Commission has enacted a ban on crypto mining, while a Georgian commission representing 18 primarily rural counties has published advice on how to restrict the development of Bitcoin mines."When you're in my backyard, when you're in my town, trying to wreck our property and our peace, people will tell you, it's a hard 'no'," says Ms Roberson.Although 80% of local people backed Trump last November, that support doesn't appear to stop people opposing one of his key crypto goals.

The Trump administration is not planning to do away with all regulations around crypto mining - but it is ready to actively help companies open power plants next to the mines.In an interview with Bitcoin Magazine in April, commerce secretary Howard Lutnick said: "We're going to make it so that if you want to mine Bitcoin, and you find the right place to do it, you can build your own power plant next to it," going on to argue that such projects would stop "these stories about 'You're taking too much power and now the cost of operating my refrigerator is higher'."

"The next generation of miners in America will be able to control their destiny, control the cost of power, and I think that is going to turbocharge Bitcoin mining in America," Lutnick told the magazine.

According to Zack Shapiro, head of policy at the Bitcoin Policy Institute, a US think tank that researches emerging monetary networks, that process has already begun. "There are states that are passing laws specifically prohibiting municipalities from banning Bitcoin mines," he says. "It's a mechanism by which mining companies can fight back."Reflecting the party's anti-EU stance, Reform did much better in wards that voted heavily for Leave in the 2016 EU referendum than it did in wards that backed Remain.

In wards where more than 65% voted Leave in 2016, Reform won on average as much as 45% of the vote. In contrast, in places where a majority backed Remain, only 19% voted for Reform.Although talked about much less by politicians nowadays, Brexit is still an important fault line in our politics. Reform's appeal is significantly concentrated among those who believe the Brexit decision was right.

Even so, the fact that even in pro-Remain wards the party was able to win as much as a fifth of the vote was testimony to the scale of the swing that it enjoyed on Thursday.The Brexit division is also evident in the demographic character of the places where Reform did best and those where it did less well.