While Farage has been the star of the show so far, since he went public last month there has been a steady drumbeat of prominent figures revealing they too had been debanked.
Even the rich and powerful kept the fact they had been victims of the United Kingdom debanking scandal until now, with Brexiteer-turned-bank reform campaigner Nigel Farage saying a combination of shame and fear that going public could destroy their credit rating meant until now many had suffered in silence.
Among those who have now come forward to reveal their own stories of having bank accounts closed and refused for themselves and their families include those who theoretically should be most able to do something about it, including Members of Parliament from the governing Conservatives and even the country’s finance minister.
Speaking on the reluctance of many to come forward until now, Mr Farage said on Sunday: “this is the point. Nobody with profile who has been debanked has come forward. Two reasons: one, a sense of shame, humiliation and embarrassment. Secondly, it would damage their prospects of getting other bank accounts.”
While the focus of the debanking scandal has emphatically been the NatWest group and its subsidiary Coutts — who canceled Farage’s account, starting a chain reaction ending with the leaders of both banks resigning in disgrace last week — Mr Farage has said the revelations are only just beginning, and that every bank in the UK will be exposed as having been involved.
He wrote: “…all banks are guilty. We will get to the bottom of this national scandal.”
Although some who very much had access to the power of the state were debanked and chose not to speak out until Farage put his head above the parapet first, a great many others had their accounts closed but were functionally voiceless. Speaking of the thousands who have come forward so far to share their stories — many of them operators of small businesses trading with the public with cash — Farage told GB News: “This isn’t just high-profile people with strong opinions, that are being closed down by banks that have become completely politicised in the most extraordinary way.
“What I have learned in the three weeks since I came out — as it were — I have been just inundated by small businesses, by folk all around the country, people in absolute fear, terror, lives being ruined, thousands of businesses being closed. These are people who have done nothing wrong whatsoever.”
Distinguishing between the politically-motivated debanking of prominent figures on one hand and the attack on cash against private individuals and small business on the other, Farage laid the blame on powerful but ineffective anti-money-laundering regulations implemented with extreme zealotry by bank compliance departments. Echoing other remarks made in recent days, the Brexit leader turned banking reform campaigner cited 2020 research that asserted every £1 of laundered money cost £100 in compliance, calling the rules the “sledgehammer to miss the nut”.
He said: “We’re not stopping the crooks, but we’re closing down small businesses. We’re seeing these banks, which our taxes bailed out in 2008-9, and in return, they’ve closed 5,000 branches around the country. They’re saying to businesses — say you’re running a fish stall — sorry, we don’t want cash… we don’t want your business. They are trying to drive cash out of the economy.”
The remarks come as Mr Farage launches a campaign group to hammer home the early progress of his moves to curb debanking, both encouraging those who have lost their accounts already to come forward, and a drive to support cash in the economy. “I’m beginning to have the impression this is much, much bigger than any of us could have contemplated… This is about the right to free speech, about having a country where people are treated fairly in an age when you frankly can’t function on a personal level, let alone a business level, without a bank account”, he said.
While some in the UK have bemoaned Nigel Farage enjoying weeks of front-page news exposure for his debanking crusade, his ability to make headlines and force change has been noticed abroad. As reported, a top German newspaper said the Brexit leader wielded political influence in the United Kingdom that other parties could only dream of.
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