The bank planned to close Nigel Farage’s account due to his political views and friendship with Donald Trump.
QUICK FACTS:
- U.K. conservative and Brexit leader Nigel Farage received a letter from Coutts Bank interim CEO, Mohammad Kamal Syed, saying Farage’s account would remain open.
- The bank considered closing Farage’s personal and business accounts after opposing his political views.
- Syed was placed as interim CEO after it was learned Coutts CEO Peter Flavel and former NatWest CEO Dame Alison Rose leaked Farage’s financial information to the BBC.
- Farage plans to continue campaigning against the political agenda behind the banking industry.
- “Most of these people aren’t in my position, they haven’t got the platform, they haven’t got the opportunity to fight back,” Farage said on GB News.
- “So if I can speak up for all of those people, we can deal with this nonsense. If we can get ultimately to the position where having a bank account becomes a right in our country, because you can’t function otherwise in the 21st century without it, that would be a real victory,” he added.
- Farage emphasized, “And that’s where I want to get to. Let’s get politics out of banking, let’s get prejudice out of banking.”
BANKS CLOSING A THOUSAND ACCOUNTS EACH DAY:
- A Freedom of Information request found that British banks are closing over a thousand accounts every working day.
- Last year alone, 350,000 bank accounts were canceled, many due to the account holders’ political differences.
- In 2016, almost 50,000 were shut down.
- Around 90,000 individuals are considered to be “politically exposed persons” by banks, including parliament members and others.
- In an ongoing inquiry into Farage’s case, he demanded to “know how many other people had accounts closed at NatWest and Coutts because of their opinions. And what can we do to make sure that nothing like this ever happens to anybody else in your banking group again?”
BACKGROUND:
- Earlier in July, Farage wrote an editorial in the Telegraph detailing the political discrimination he has faced at the hands of U.K. banks.
- “We are living through the politicization of our corporate sector. Woe betide you if you do not conform with its worldview,” Farage wrote.
- “For years, I have been falsely accused of having financial links to Russian funding. Even though this is nonsense, MPs have used parliamentary privilege to accuse various people associated with the Brexit campaign of the same thing,” Farage wrote, describing what he believes to be the justification banks used against his account.
- Farage continued, “Last year, the Labour MP Sir Chris Bryant claimed in the Commons chamber that I received £548,573 in one calendar year “from the Russian state,” explaining that the idea was false.
