A charity established for the preservation of a Battle of Britain memorial has claimed to be the latest casualty in the debanking scandal sweeping the UK.
Speaking to Brexit leader Nigel Farage — who lifted the lid on the debanking practices by British banks after publicly revealing his own accounts were shut down last year — the honorary secretary of the Battle of Britain Memorial charity, Group Captain Patrick Tootal accused Barclays Bank of wrongfully shutting down their account, resulting in the loss of £8,000 in donations.
The charity was established to preserve the national memorial at Capel-le-Ferne in Kent to “The Few” spoken of by Sir Winston Churchill in his famed speech in which he praised the bravery of Royal Air Force airmen during the Battle of Britain during World War II, immortalised in the line from the British wartime leader: “Never was so much owed by so many to so few”.
FOLKESTONE, UNITED KINGDOM – OCTOBER 28: The Battle of Britain National Memorial to The Few on October 28, 2010 in Folkestone, England. (Photo by Indigo/Getty Images)
“The battle has been going on for two years,” Tootal said, explaining that he received a letter from the bank saying that the charity’s original account was to be shut down over supposed concerns of money laundering.
“I don’t think we do a lot of money laundering in the Battle of Britain,” he told GB News.
“But what annoyed me is you can go on to the Charity Commission website and there we are still there. We kept the old charity number going because we were probably still receiving some legacies. If it appeared in wills it was ‘The Battle of Britain Memorial Trust.’
“I got halfway through it and last year they said, don’t worry about it, we can give you the same account number, same sort code and you won’t have to tell your people to stop standing orders or change them.
“We wrote to all these people and said we understood Barclays were fixing it and then finally, I get something at the end of October saying ‘we’ve closed your account’.”
Tootal said that for their troubles, Barclays offered £100 in compensation, saying: “It’s laughable… It’s bureaucratic nonsense. We had all this money sitting in our account that the charity needs for the upkeep of the site.”
In a statement, Barclays said: “Barclays serves many charities across the UK and we recognise the contribution they make to society. It’s important we fully understand our customers’ activity to ensure we can fully support them and meet our regulatory obligations and our ongoing responsibility to help prevent financial crime. As we have not had permission from the business owner concerned, we are not able to comment on this account as it would breach data protection.”