Careful what you say, or you may end up without any banking facilities.

Coutts has handled this very badly. They have given Farage a platform when I hoped he was heading into obscurity.

Good post TerriBull.

Banks, basically, virtue-signalling?

vegansrock

But Farage wasn’t denied banking facilities because of a protected characteristic. If I owned a sweet shop and refused to serve some one because of their race or sexuality that would be illegal, but if I refused to serve Farage because I considered he had destroyed my business then that would be perfectly legal. May not be moral in some peoples view, but that’s the law. As I understand it, Farage was offered an account with Nat West, but he didn’t consider this good enough. So he wasn’t denied any banking facilities just that one particular bank.

You'd be quite happy if I refused to serve you due to my dislike of your political beliefs. You'd be quite happy for your bank to disclose your private details to the beeb, and the said beeb passed on these lies,along with two of their journalists.
Stasi comes to mind. Laugh all you like, refusing banking to someone because of your beliefs, appalling. I can't abide Lammy and his anti white racism, wouldn't not want him to lose the ability to pay bills etc. 17 million people voted for Brexit,5 million people voted Farage into the EU parliament. Should Banks should ban all of those too. Having had this done to me, as previously stated, it can ruin people's lives. Banks have no right to moralise, and hopefully the Financial ombudsman will bring in legislation to stop this happening again, because believe me it doesn't just happen to high profile people. Rant over.

Ailidh

I'm with Vegansrock. No private company is compelled to do business with someone whose views are incompatible with the company's values, except when not to do so would be illegal.

There are other banks.

Some water companies are private companies as far as I know.

TerriBull 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
It’s the jumping on the bandwagon thing isn’t it? I don’t care who supports Pride either.In fact considering that gay people can now marry and have all the rights that anyone else does I think it’s time they gave it a rest tbh.

eazybee

To repeat, again: Farage had been accepted as a customer for a number of years without any concern about his political views, which have never been anything but transparently clear.
Suddenly he was 'de-banked' without any explanation and the BBC were 'made privy to' the reasons, insufficient funds, which information they broadcast and which proved to be untrue.

No identification of any of these people responsible.

Institutions may choose who they wish to serve, but common decency demands that they give a viable reason, particularly to existing customers. If not, there is a suspicion of malpractice, which seems to be the case here, and has led so many people who do not normally support Nigel Farage being horrified by what has happened.

Good comment.
Considering that banks have always had some really dodgy customers, including Coutts I bet, it seems that banks and building societies are now hurrying towards some PC practices.Sure, they need to avoid the obvs illegal stuff but not deny accounts to vicars who don’t agree with Pride marches or Mrs Anybody who doesn’t like all the trans stuff or NF or anyone well known cos they think they’re xenophobic and so on.

Banks having values There hasn't been a lot of evidence of that in the past! Now like other large corporations they are expected to sign up to ESG, driven along by hedge funds such as Black Rock, do we need a friggin hedge funds, who themselves have questionable practices to shape our consciousness. One such strand of this new raison d'etre is that they promote minority groups such as LGBTQ. as well as other certain views. Promoting certain orthodoxies is completely biased, as in the case of Nigel Farage who has espoused things that don't fit this whole new lofty, sanctimonious ethos he gets de banked. Never mind that well known people will be saying things that are completely reprehensible, nevertheless, if they say and do things that don't fall between those narrow parameters then that's alright, they can be as violent and threatening as they like as indeed some of the trans lobby have been towards gender critical women, but then the latter are of course on the wrong side of the argument anyway.

Then there is the ordinary citizen such as the vicar, who when asked to give feed back to The Yorkshire Bank, commented on the fact that their branch and website was festooned with Pride flags and it wasn't a financial institution's remit to socially engineer or promote alternative lifestyles. For that his bank account of 17 years was closed. I feel the same, Regent Street was decked out with so many Pride flags during the month of June it looked as if some foreign occupying army had taken control. Why? When we go into a bank to move money around say, and should we get on one of their machines we are reminded that they support Pride, I don't care! I'm here to look at my finances, or in Marks and Spencer when their public announcement reiterated on a loop voicing their support for LGBTQ. Does the customer need to know this and be reminded of it during the duration of their visit. I absolutely supported gay marriage and equal rights. When I'm in a shop or bank do I need to know by way of PRIDE paraphernalia that other people have a different sexuality, it's irrelevant as to what I'm there for. It's just a new orthodoxy that we, the public, are reminded of continually, it's as inappropriate as religion would be in a business setting and it amounts to thought control.

Shinamae

Oh no,it’s the Mail!!…🤦‍♀️😁

So what. Every other paper covering it too. Plus news programmes.

I'm with Vegansrock. No private company is compelled to do business with someone whose views are incompatible with the company's values, except when not to do so would be illegal.

There are other banks.

I am a Christian. So I have felt free to say what I wanted for years on social media and elsewhere. - bit of a non sequitur.

Did anybody read the whole memo? I did and now I'm confused.

It seems that the bank had had concerns about him in the past, but he had a mortgage with them, co they kept the account open and kept him under review. They accepted he was no longer a PEP.

He recently paid off the mortgage, so no longer met the eligibility criteria to have a Coutts account.

So it seems like the party that is so against regulations and in favour of the free market are willing to bring in regulations to aid Farage. If they force banks to serve anyone whatever then the same must be applied to all private business.

But Farage wasn’t denied banking facilities because of a protected characteristic. If I owned a sweet shop and refused to serve some one because of their race or sexuality that would be illegal, but if I refused to serve Farage because I considered he had destroyed my business then that would be perfectly legal. May not be moral in some peoples view, but that’s the law. As I understand it, Farage was offered an account with Nat West, but he didn’t consider this good enough. So he wasn’t denied any banking facilities just that one particular bank.

To repeat, again: Farage had been accepted as a customer for a number of years without any concern about his political views, which have never been anything but transparently clear.
Suddenly he was 'de-banked' without any explanation and the BBC were 'made privy to' the reasons, insufficient funds, which information they broadcast and which proved to be untrue.

No identification of any of these people responsible.

Institutions may choose who they wish to serve, but common decency demands that they give a viable reason, particularly to existing customers. If not, there is a suspicion of malpractice, which seems to be the case here, and has led so many people who do not normally support Nigel Farage being horrified by what has happened.

vegansrock Supposing the banks decided that they didn,t want customers who were vegan, or were members of the Labour Party, or were Labour MPs? It is easy to occupy the moral high ground when you are not affected.

Oh no,it’s the Mail!!…🤦‍♀️😁

Primrose53

Very interesting that there has been massive cross party support for Nigel Farage. So it’s now out in the open that Coutts lied about their reasons for closing his account.

Whether you like him or not, as usual he has stepped up and done something about this very sinister matter.

He certainly has…👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

The thought of banks being the arbiters of our morals would be hilarious if it wasn’t so concerning.

Well that's not true. Gender critical views for example are classed as a protected belief, (and many think that's akin to being a nazi) it depends on the view and whether it can fall under the protected belief category.

Last time I looked banks were private businesses and could choose whether or not it wants anyone’s business. Insurance companies are free to deny cover for anyone they deem to be a poor risk. If they were denying someone’s business on grounds of race or gender then that would be illegal, but having obnoxious views in not a protected characteristic and neither should it be. If they deem certain views to be at odds with the values of that particular company then they shouldn’t be forced to take anyone as a customer.

The ‘massive cross party support’ for Farage has passed me by, I watched PMQ, and saw various ministers on the right supporting his stance, but I can’t recall, or find evidence of cross party support - can you point me to where you saw that please Primrose53?

It has been good to see who has been on whose side. Always an eye opener.

Co utts have dropped themselves in it. Their choice.
Not sure if it will bite them or not. It probably will. We may never know.

Very interesting that there has been massive cross party support for Nigel Farage. So it’s now out in the open that Coutts lied about their reasons for closing his account.

Whether you like him or not, as usual he has stepped up and done something about this very sinister matter.

Louella
None of us here know for sure if Prince Andrew is a customer or not. But he did set up a business with a disgraced financier who had to leave the bank (sexual harassment allegations)
Nothing grubby about that, is there 🤔

www.fnlondon.com/articles/disgraced-coutts-financier-goes-into-business-with-prince-andrew-20210427

Not sure if this has been mentioned but Coutts was always the bank that the Royals used.

Does Prince Andrew have an account?

This is turning into a real mess for Coutts and Nat West.

We have universities banning people who might upset the students. We have the likes of JK Rowling being cancelled because she dared to point out a biological fact. Or at least it used to be a biological fact.

Banning people whose politics you don't like is quite bizarre and we appear to be sleepwalking into allowing some totalitarian state.

Debate is good. Having opposing views is good. We can't all expect to think the same.

I wonder if Ricky Gervais banks with Coutts. I can't see the press dropping this so no doubt we'll get to see what customers Coutts allows.