The left cheered when Nigel Farage was ‘unbanked’. Now that the reasons are public, even some of his critics are taking his side.
For those who haven’t been paying attention to what’s happening across the pond, here’s a recap.
At the end of June, Nigel Farage made an announcement. His bank account was being shut down and he didn’t have a satisfactory explanation for ‘why’.
The establishment are trying to force me out of the UK by closing my bank accounts.
I have been given no explanation or recourse as to why this is happening to me.
This is serious political persecution at the very highest level of our system.
If they can do it to me, they… pic.twitter.com/O4xQ1h79ub
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) June 29, 2023
Early news reports claimed it was because his balance fell below the required amount to keep the account open.
Mr Farage has said he believes his account is being shut for political reasons and he has since been turned down by nine other lenders.
But people familiar with Coutts’ move said it was a “commercial” decision.
“The criteria for holding a Coutts account are clear from the bank’s website,” they told the BBC.
Coutts requires its customers to borrow or invest at least £1m with the bank or hold £3m in savings.
Speaking to the BBC from France, Mr Farage did not dispute the fact that he did not meet Coutts’ threshold, but added: “They didn’t have a problem with it for the last 10 years.”
The former leader of the UK Independence Party and Brexiteer later tweeted that at “no point”” had Coutts given him a minimum threshold.
He added that his business account was being closed despite the fact that last year he had “large significant positive cash balances” going through it. — BBC
As any right-of-center American politician knows, you should never accept as gospel the first story any regime news network tells you. ‘The Beeb’ is no exception to that rule.
A 40-page dossier now reveals the ACTUAL motivation behind Farage being frozen out of his bank accounts. And it was entirely political.
The 40-page file shows that the bank cited his retweet of a Ricky Gervais joke and his friendship with Novak Djokovic to raise concerns he was ‘xenophobic and racist’.
The extraordinary documents obtained by the former Ukip leader and handed to MailOnline revealed the 331-year-old bank decided to ‘exit’ him after making reference to his friendship with former Wimbledon champion Djokovic.
The dossier also shows the bank’s discussions considered 13 tweets, including a retweet by Mr Farage of a video of a Ricky Gervais sketch posted by Laurence Fox satirising the transgender movement. In the scene Gervais made a joke about ‘old-fashioned women – the ones with wombs’.
Mr Farage had retweeted the clip in May last year with the phrase ‘this is brilliant’ – but the document described it as a ‘transphobic comedy sketch’.
The officials noted that closing his accounts could not be justified on the basis of his wealth as his ‘economic contribution’ was ‘sufficient to retain on a commercial basis’.
But the minutes state: ‘The Committee did not think continuing to bank NF was compatible with Coutts given his publicly-stated views that were at odds with our position as an inclusive organisation.’
Rishi Sunak vowed a crackdown on public figures being effectively punished for their political views after being repeatedly challenged to act by Tory MPs at PMQs this afternoon.
And Tory ministers have lined up behind Mr Farage against the bank, owned by NatWest, with Suella Braverman branding the situation ‘sinister’. — DailyMail
Naturally, his support of Trump came up in the dossier as well.
Between the UK shutting off Farage’s bank account and Trudeau doing the same thing to the Trucker Protest, banking is getting super-political. All the more reason to push back against the centralized control of a digital currency.
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