The New Normal: Banks Refusing to Serve Customers with "Inappropriate" Views
The New Normal: Banks Refusing to Serve Customers with "Inappropriate" Views
What happened to Nigel Farage and his bank account is not an isolated incident - for some time now, banks have been declaring conservative politicians and commentators unsuitable customers.
Nigel Farage, the former chairman of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which advocated leaving the European Union, and now a TV presenter, posted a video on his Twitter account recently in which he said British banks no longer want him as a customer. Farage said he had been a customer of the same banking group since 1980. It has held his personal accounts, as well as those of his business. “I got a phone call a couple of months ago to say we are closing your accounts. I asked why? No reason was given,” he said. “I was told a letter would come which will explain everything, the letter came through and simply said ‘we are closing your accounts’,” he added.
Farage filed a protest, wrote an email to the bank manager and finally received another reply – explaining that it was “a commercial decision”.
Farage has now tried to open an account with nine other banks and has received a negative response from each. He discusses that one possible explanation for this situation in his case is the large role he played in Brexit, which the banking community did not want or forgive him for. Another possible explanation for the situation, he says, is the fact that Chris Bryant, a Labour member of the British Parliament, recently accused him of receiving a large sum of money from Russia, which is not true.
Of course, it is likely that closure of Farage's accounts as an isolated incident could have been caused by one of his own possible explanations or by something else. For example, the BBC reported on it, after the story was picked up by the press, that Farage's account at Coutts, a private bank serving wealthy clients, was closed because the amount of assets he held in the bank had fallen below the threshold required of a client. However, NatWest, a major UK bank which owns Coutts, had reportedly offered him an account with them. Farage refuted these claims. The account was offered only after he had made his case public, and Coutts' so-called 'rules' meant that his account had not met them for the past ten years. Many of the same bank's customers have now written to Farage saying that they too do not have a million pounds in their accounts – which the rules seem to stipulate as a condition – and have not had it there for over 10 years. Yet no one has made any comment to them. So, that could not be the real reason.
In addition, if you look at similar cases which have become quite frequent in recent years, there is a clear pattern here, which also suggests that the real reason for deleting Farage’s accounts lies elsewhere.
You cannot be against transidelogy if you want to keep your account
For example, in the same UK, mortgage-focused financial services provider Yorkshire Building Society (YBS) closed the account of its client, Anglican Church vicar Richard Fothergill, because he protested that the institution was engaging in LGBTQ propaganda – as many financial institutions have now done for Pride month in June. When the institution asked for feedback from him as a customer in mid-June, he wrote to them about it. "They are a financial house – they are not there to do social engineering. I think they should concentrate their efforts on managing money, instead of promoting LGBT ideology," he commented to The Times, adding that in his letter he was particularly protesting against the trans ideology being promoted among children.
YBS commented that they never close customers' accounts “based on different opinions regarding beliefs or feedback provided by our customers”. "We only ever make the difficult decision to close a savings account if a customer is rude, abusive, violent or discriminates in any way, based on the specific facts, comments and behaviour in each case," they said. So we must conclude that the financial institution considered the protest against the promotion of trans ideology to children to be rude, abusive, violent or discriminatory.
In April 2020, however, Britain's Nationwide bank informed Christina Jordan, a then MEP and a member of the Brexit Party – which Farage co-founded – that her and her family's accounts would be closed. The reason given for the decision was that it was “a business sensitive” matter.
Metro Bank also closed the account of Henrik Overgaard-Nielsen, another Brexit Party MEP back in 2020. A year later, the same bank closed several accounts of the Brexit party, which had been renamed the Reform UK, following the Brexit deal.
In 2021, however, the right-wing Reclaim party led by Britain's Laurence Fox could not open a bank account at all.
Trends not unique to the UK
Similar trends are not unique to the UK. Last September, US bank JP Morgan informed controversial rapper and designer Kanye West that it was terminating its client relationship with him. By November 21, West had to transfer his and his businesses' finances out of the bank and move their settlements elsewhere. West has a history of provocative speech and action, which has led to accusations of racism and anti-Semitism. For example, the black rapper has been criticised for wearing a shirt with the slogan "white lives matter". However, it was probably his criticism of bank managers that led to the termination of the bank's cooperation.
Last year, however, the financial intermediary PayPal closed three accounts managed by Toby Young, general secretary of the Free Speech Union. They were only reopened after British MPs accused PayPal of being politically motivated.
PayPal has done the same with a number of other accounts belonging to organisations ideologically unsympathetic to them. For example, PayPal closed the account of the British parents' association UsForThem due to the 'nature of their activities' and they lost thousands of pounds donated to them. The group campaigned against the school closures during the pandemic.
Last year, PayPal and another payment solutions company, Venmo, also closed the accounts of the US organisation Gays Against Groomers. This is an organisation of homosexual people that opposes transideology, the sexualisation of children and recommendation of sex change surgeries.
PayPal has also closed the account of Colin Wright, an evolutionary biologist who opposes trans ideology; has repeatedly penalised The Exposé, a publication that exposes holes in the Covid narrative, with a loss of funds; has closed the accounts of Consortium News and MintPress News, and has done so also in a number of other cases.
Alongside payment providers, financial intermediaries and banks, the refusal to provide services for ideological reasons also affects online platforms for crowdfunding campaigns. In early 2022, truck drivers protesting against the Covid terror in Canada launched their own campaign on GoFundMe and raised $10 million in a short time. However, GoFundMe didn't pay it out.
Sunak: we have to respect people’s right to free speech
Farage's case has brought the issue sharply to the fore in the UK. Treasury Secretary Jeremy Hunt is also now "deeply concerned" that lenders are blacklisting customers whose political beliefs and social values conflict with their own. The Treasury has promised to look into the matter.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also commented that banks should not be allowed to close accounts because of a customer's views. “Obviously, we have to respect people’s right to free speech and that should not be an excuse to close anyone’s account and that’s not what we would expect,” he said.
The problem is understandably huge. How is a person supposed to manage in today's society without a bank account? How can they get a salary? How will they pay their bills? Buy their food? "To be deprived of a bank account is to be a victim of social murder," commented Neil Oliver, a historian and sociocritical commentator who hosts a programme on the same channel as Farage (GB News).