“The establishment are trying to force me out of the UK by closing my bank accounts… If they can do it to me, they can do it to you too”, said ‘Mr Brexit’ as he revealed that suddenly no British bank would let him have an account.
Having a bank account is necessary to interact with modern society in a basic way and being deprived of that facility is tantamount to becoming a “non-person”, a downcast Nigel Farage said Thursday as he revealed he and close members of his family are being prevented from holding an account in the United Kingdom. Warning viewers on Thursday night, he reflected: “This is going on in our country. It’s happening to plenty of people, I just happen to be one of them.
“But do you know what? Unless this rot is stopped in time to come you at home may say things on Facebook or Twitter that may result in you losing your bank accounts too. That, I think, is how scary this whole thing is.”
Farage had banked with the same banking group since the 1980s for both personal and business, he said, and that no reason was given for his longstanding relationship with the unnamed bank being terminated.
Incredibly, the Brexit leader said he approached seven other British banks and they all refused to give him an account. Speaking on Thursday, Farage said:
“I’ve been living with something the past couple of months that may well fundamentally affect my future career and whether I can even stay living in this country… I got a phone call a couple of months ago to say ‘we are closing your accounts’. I asked why, but no reason was given. I was told a letter was coming that would explain everything.
“I didn’t know quite what to make of it. I complained, I emailed the chairman, a lackey phoned me to say it was a ‘commercial decision’, which I must say I didn’t believe for a single moment.”
Farage considered a couple of options as to what may have caused this change, including personal animosity against him because he led the Brexit campaign that the banking sector opposed. He also recalled that he had been accused of taking Russian money by a member of parliament speaking under parliamentary privelege, leaving Farage with no recourse to challenge the claim. He said:
I don’t think anybody has been treated like me in the world of politics. But then again the banks themselves are part of the big corporate structures in this country. These are the organisations that did not want Brexit to happen… A few months ago in the House of Commons Sir Chris Bryant, chairman of the Privileges Committee said using parliamentary privilege that I had received large sums of money directly from the Russian government… truth is, I haven’t received a single penny from any source with even any link to Russia. Yet because he said it, it stands. I wrote to the speaker, I demanded an apology… I wonder if that is what has been giving me part of the problem.
The veteran political campaigner was at risk of becoming a “non-person”, he said, comparing the campaign to make life impossible for political undesirables to “the worst regimes of the mid-20th century. Farage said on his nightly television talk show on GB News that: “basically you’ve become a non-person. It’s rather like living in Germany or Russia 80 years ago. Or perhaps even Communist China today. I wonder, are we living in Communist China today, in this country?”.
Revealing his family was also being targeted, the Brexit leader told viewers: “Some of these ridiculous rules and closures have been extended to my immediate family. While I am sad and annoyed about where I am, I am absolutely incandescent that members of my family should be singled out and targeted just because I campaigned for and pushed a Brexit campaign for all those years. This is truly and utterly disgusting.” He said he will be undertaking legal action.
Mr Farage also revealed he was coming to some tough decisions about what to do next, and that he was going to be taking a couple of weeks out of the public eye to fight this attack.
“I am beginning to think that perhaps life in the United Kingdom is becoming completely unlivable because of the prejudice against me”, he said.
Some responded to Farage’s revelation with dismay, including former BBC senior political presenter Andrew Neil who reflected: “If this is anywhere near a fair and accurate account of the situation — and it looks to me that it is — then it really is quite the story. And very troubling.”
As previously reported, Nigel Farage’s one-time Brexit Party, now called the Reform Party, was also the subject of an attempted debanking in 2021 when Metro Bank closed their accounts. The bank claimed it was not “commercially viable” as a “politically neutral” bank to continue providing an account to the bank, something Party Chairman Richard Tice dismissed. As reported:
“millions of pounds” had passed through the account and that approximately £750,000 in party expenditures had gone through the account in the past seven to nine months.
“My hunch is this is a decision based on politics and the difficulty for banks of being involved with politically exposed persons and political parties,” Tice suggested.
Debanking is not just for elected politicians, but there can be blowback for banks. In a new development this week that may be cheering for Mr Farage, Barclays Bank of the United Kingdom was ordered to pay a £21,000 settlement to a Christian group they debanked in 2020. While the cash was paid to avoid a lawsuit, the bank accounts were not restored.
In another case and as reported earlier this year, JP Morgan was warned by state financial officers to stop the “politically motivated” debanking of the fossil fuel industry. The letter said:
…The bank’s apparent move to discriminate against politically disfavored industries is spilling over into its other activities. Recently, Chase closed the National Committee for Religious Freedom’s (NCRF) account without explanation. After repeated requests to reinstate the account, Chase informed NCRF that it would only consider doing so if the non-profit agreed to disclose detailed information about its donors and the criteria used to decide which political candidates it supports.
This is not the first time Chase has engaged in questionable incidents of de-banking. In 2021, WePay, a subsidiary of Chase, denied ticket payment processing services for a mainstream republican event hosted by the non-profit, Defense of Liberty. As justification, WePay cited a policy that barred payment processing services in connection with “hate . . . racial intolerance . . . or items or activities that encourage, promote, facilitate, or instruct others regarding the same.” Such vague and ambiguous terms can easily be used to hide viewpoint-based discrimination.
There are other similar cancellation incidents that raise the specter of viewpoint bias. In 2021, Chase cancelled a credit card account connected to former general Michael Flynn for questionable reasons. That same year, Chase terminated the Arkansas Family Council’s account because the organization was deemed “High Risk,” even though they had done business with the bank for over two years.
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