(Updates with correction about the dossier. Thanks to eagle-eyed readers for the pointer!)
A few days ago, Patrick Crozier of this parish wrote about the decision by Coutts, a UK bank that is part of NatWest Group, to end an account of former UKIP leader Nigel Farage. At the time, Farage speculated he may have been targeted for cancellation of this account (he was offered a retail, mass-market NatWest account instead) because he was what is called a Politically Exposed Person (PEP), or that someone had flagged him following allegations (which he denies) of receiving lots of money from Russian-backed state media, and he also wondered whether his role in driving Brexit, and his scepticism about a climate crisis, etc, were factors. (Here are some of my comments on the case.)
In the following days, the former CEO of NatWest told a BBC journalist that a reason for the debanking of Farage was that he lacked the funds to justify a particular Coutts account. The BBC journalist ran a story; this was a clear breach of client confidentiality – also possibly a serious regulatory/criminal offence – and Alison Rose, the CEO, resigned this week. Peter Flavel, the Coutts CEO, has also resigned.
It also turned out that NatWest had compiled a dossier about Farage, which was sent to him after he requested it and he later shared this with the Daily Telegraph newspaper, showing that his political views and associations – including friendship with tennis ace Novak Djokovic – were reasons to suspect that Farage was a bad egg, and his “values” did not “align” with those of NatWest. NatWest has championed ESG investing, diversity, equity and inclusion, to a degree that puts it out front of other banks. NatWest is 38.6 per cent owned by the UK government. In the furore about its treatment of Farage – now a presenter on GB News – Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and other ministers, and yes, even columnists in the Guardian, have argued that the treatment of Farage was beyond the pale.
The reputation of Coutts and NatWest has been damaged. Coutts is a “posh” bank, supposedly used by the UK Royal Family – for whatever that’s worth – and in days of yore, having a Coutts account was a bit of a brag point. Well, no longer.
Meanwhile, in the US, the banking group Chase has shut an account of a businessman and those of his relations because, as far as I can tell, he has been a prominent critic of US vaccine policy and the policy response to the pandemic. There is the disgraceful Canadian case of the government freezing accounts of people donating to truckers protesting about vaccine mandates. The PayPal account of the Free Speech Union was closed (PayPal eventually overturned that decision.)
The “debanking” of people for the offence of holding the “wrong” views appears to be a general trend. At HSBC, in what I consider the most shocking act so far, earlier this year it was reported that the UK-headquartered bank, which does most of its business in Asia, had blocked pension payments to Hong Kong dissidents who fled the jurisdiction following Beijing’s national security crackdown. In 2020, when China imposed its law on Hong Kong, HSBC and Standard Chartered, another UK-listed bank, issued public statements supporting this law. So much for their concerns about “sustainability”, “inclusion” or all the other cant expressions of modern finance.
Even so, the optimist in me hopes that these cases, especially the NatWest/Farage one, might signal a high watermark for this sort of nonsense. The mask is well and truly off. People, not just those on the Right side of politics, can see what is going on.
People don’t have a “right” to a bank account, any more than they do to “free” healthcare, but they have the freedom to go about their lawful business unmolested. Now, in conditions of laissez faire capitalism, competition would weed out the idiots and ensure people could have a choice of bank services, with even the most eccentric or troublesome individuals being able to conduct financial affairs, even if with just cash. But we don’t have such a situation. We have a banking system umbilically linked to the State, fed on cheap central bank funny money, resting on a set of monopoly fiat currencies, and hedged by regulations, and as a result, stuffed with people whose main function is compliance with this or that rule, not focusing on building value. The upper reaches of these banks are filled with mediocrities who shuffle between private and public sectors with alarming ease, and who know all the right words.
Farage is an excellent campaigner and he knows how to get a message across. He does not respond well to slights. NatWest chose the wrong man to antagonise and be rude about. Maybe, as investors contemplate the falling share price of NatWest, and the tarnished image of Coutts, they’ll realise that indulging political prejudices instead of doing an honest job is not survivable. Maybe, just maybe, this may be the beginning of the end of the idiocy sweeping through the commercial world. As interest rates go up, and the zombification of corporate life ends after over a decade of QE, the harsh realities of making a profit return to the fore. As Allister Heath argues in the Daily Telegraph today, Milton Friedman’s attacks on the foolishness of corporate “social responsibility” become more relevant by the day.
@Johnathan Pearce
and [Farage’s] “values” did not “align” with those of NatWest.
Evidently I was under the mistaken impression that the “values” of NatWest and all banks was to provide great retail customer service so that people would deposit their money, and that they could then use that money to lend to borrowers at interest.
In a competitive system that is what NatWest’s values would be. It is only the massive amounts of government interference that allows them the slack in their business for the “values” they refer to with respect to Mr. Farage.
People don’t have a “right” to a bank account, any more than they do to “free” healthcare, but they have the freedom to go about their lawful business unmolested.
For sure, people don’t have a right to a bank account. What they do have a right to is to create whatever business they want, including starting a bank, or a credit card system or an online payment system. As you rightly say “the freedom to go about their lawful business unmolested.” However, the government with their byzantine legislative behemoth have largely made that impossible for all but the very richest and well connected. And so we have a huge cartel with massive rent seeking and unaccountable risk backstopped by the tax payer. I mean what could possibly go wrong?
A minor correction: the dossier wasn’t leaked to Farage. The Telegraph’s own wording when they published it was “The document was given to Mr Farage after he made a subject access request to Coutts, and has been shared with the Telegraph.” That implies that he wanted the Telegraph to see it.
(For those who don’t know, a “subject access request” is a request – actually, “legal demand” would be a better description – that you can make under British Freedom of Information law for an organisation to tell you what information it holds about you.)
If the state creates an environment where a bank account is required for a person to function in society and its legislation means there are a limited number of banking options, all underpinned by taxpayer support, then it is obliged to ensure every citizen, regardless of their views, can have a bank account.
It becomes an interesting idea of who has a right to bank, already in league with governments and in the case of the US governed by a quasi-US government agency in the form of the Federal Reserve, when paychecks are now almost always issued electronically and direct deposited.
Coutts and Company is a company and a bank owned by the NatWest Group. It is not a limited company, its articles of association can be found here.
And materially, I note, the relatively recent change:
I can’t see any direct reference to ‘getting rid of Brexiteers’ in those parts, so perhaps that’s why the assault on a customer has run into the sand.
Wow. Explicit waiver of the overriding Duty To Shareholders. And adopted long enough ago so that aggrieved shareholders no longer have legal recourse.
The trouble is that the Tories, who ae the only people even in theory who might choose to do something about this, have sat on their fat behinds doing the square root of diddley squat about bringing the lunatics to heel.
Ministers are bound by the Equality Act, and can’t depart from the legal advice of their cvil service controllers for fear of personal civil and criminal penalty. So change the effing law ! But they haven’t.
And they won’t, because they’re are about to be deservedly booted out, big time.
The only useful thing they’ve done in 13 years is to get out the EU and they had to be dragged into that kicking and screaming.
Because I’m an optimist, I’m hoping they’ll be reduced to about 17 MPs with a large majority of Neanderthals. So that they can just stop the selection of anyone to the left of Norman Tebbit next time round.
Something I don’t know about corporate law in England: Can 60% of the shareholders of a corporation vote to gift the entire value of the corporation over to charity? Do the dissenting 40% have any recourse, aside from trying to sell their now-worthless shares?
The problem is that no one in government will acknowledge that the root cause is government intervention. If they take any action, it will be to intervene further, with more regulations.
You are too optimist.
The CEO uses the bank for her social advance and earn social reputational points in her social class circle. That is much more important for her than more or less 1000M£ for shareholders. Maybe even most of her most important shareholders agree with her and want a world where Farages of this world cannot be nothing more than janitors without voice.
She lost a battle, but she is not defeated, to be defeated that emply she would not get another important job. I bet she will get another important job. It will be telling who will give her that job and i hope it will be noticed loud.
Note that BBC made of journalists of same social thinking did not do any journalism work just parroting her false words.
The root cause is not government intervention, the root cause is the cultural dominance of the Left – the Left controls schools, academia, media, entertainment ie : all propaganda tools- and low cultural output of the right. It is also the confusion between capitalism and free market and the low historical knowledge of Marxism by the right. If Marxism can use capitalist tools like the “multinational” to create their “every animal is equal but some are more equal than others” society they will.
It did not escaped Marxism the strong normalising force that a “multinational” have.
Perhaps we should all write to our banks and ask them if they have any “values” that customers need to be “aligned with” just as a heads up.
Colli writes: The problem is that no one in government will acknowledge that the root cause is government intervention.
Winner of this comment thread. 100%.
Luckylucky, yes, it is true that parts of business have been infected, but they tend to be those parts where government intervention is an issue. Take banking and the degree of regulation, or parts of the energy sector (the Net Zero cult). You tend not to read a lot about “woke” ideas infesting the welding, scaffolding, bricklaying and truck-driving sectors.
You might not have a right to a bank but if you’re a mug who pays taxes, it would seem you have a responsibility to bail them out.
Sir Howard Davies, Chairman of “NatWest”, ex senior government bureaucrat (regulating the very industry he is in – one of a Legion of examples of institutionalised corruption, sometimes called public-private partnership) and, of course, World Economic Forum type – holds that using the financial system for political persecution is fine in principle – and that the CEO of the bank was forced out unfairly.
Mr Farage has still not being given back his account – and this did not start with him. For example, Katie Hopkins (who committed no crime) was turned from well known newspaper and television person to a “non person” – losing her bank account and everything else, including her children (yes her children).
The basis of both DEI (EDI in Britain) and ESG is financial punishment – if people are not punished, driven from the jobs, lose banking services, and so on, for “opposing Diversity” or “denying Climate Change” or whatever, then the modern system would collapse.
The system that is being built depends on fear of financial (losing you job, payment services…) punishment, for being a “Racist” or a “Denier” or whatever, – so from his own point of view, Sir Howard Davies is CORRECT – how can one build and maintain a totalitarian world order if people are not punished for opposing it?
The capstone of tyranny will be fully digital currency – which is largely digital already.
The idea that this is just “NatWest” is mistaken – under the present system, monetary and financial system, one can not have a bank that is NOT “Woke”.
Remember when Jacob Rees-Mogg, who was a senior government minister, tried to end “Diversity training” in government? He was told he could not – he was elected, but he was “in office, but not in power”, the “Diversity training” continues – in Central Government, the banks, the vast Corporations (the banks are joined at the hip with government and the Corporations depend on the Credit Money of the banks) and in local government. All local councillors, including me, have to undergo such “training” – it is not optional, and dissent is punished (as a Colleague of mine is finding out).
Tyranny is not built in a day – what is becoming obvious now has been “in the works” (as it were) for many years.
So the idea that, say, Barclays is fundamentally different from “NatWest” is, sadly, not true – it is the system itself that is bad.
When defenders of the banks say free marketish sounding things like ‘banks should be able to choose their customers like any business’ I ask them to point to any major bank out there that is actually ran by people who are actual free-marketeers (ie no bank bailouts, no central bank’s, no QE etc etc). I’m still waiting. The banks are not run by people who believe in a free market so why shouldn’t be allowed to get away with quasi- free market sounding rhetoric when it suits them.
Remember when Jacob Rees-Mogg, who was a senior government minister, tried to end “Diversity training” in government? He was told he could not – he was elected, but he was “in office, but not in power”, the “Diversity training” continues –
As I mentioned above, the Tories, who have had a large majority for nearly 4 years, could have changed the laws that require Ministers to follow their civil servants policies, rather than vive versa.
They have done nothing.
Martin, remember back in 2008/9 when Barclays refused a UK bailout, and instead got funding from Qatar (not ideal, but hey). Anyway, the senior Barclays figures were pursued at the time through the courts. The affair had all the appearance of an act of rage by the UK authorities against Barclays for the cheek of refusing a bailout. It was like something out of Atlas Shrugged.
There are one or two Swiss private banks that still operate under unlimited liability, receive no bailouts, and are well run. The issue is that they are obscure, and tend to be used by the mega-rich.
I’d forgotten about this. I’ve no doubt that the UK authorities were motivated by spite here. That said, given the Qataris in question were the sovereign wealth fund (ie state owned company), it wasn’t like Barclays were some principled free marketeers.
Foreign sovereign wealth funds and other state backed companies do present a problem. Although in principle I think privatisation of many utilities in the UK was a good thing, the fact that a lot of them are now controlled by foreign state owned enterprises has soured my views somewhat as I’m not sure that was the intention back in the 1980s/90s.
Lee Moore wrote:
We have the opposite problem in the US. The courts and legislatures have given so many forms of legal immunity to themselves that unless it is a cop caught on tape doing an overt act violating someone’s civil rights, there is no liability or accountability at all. No one ever gets fired, no on ever gets perp walked, no one ever ends up in prison for long terms. Every now and then they’ll throw us a bone and allow someone to be prosecuted just so we can pretend they’ll be punished, but even that is a rare occurrence.
Lawmakers, bureaucrats, judges, their helpers in Big Business, they are all untouchable on our side of the Pond.
Because those persons were not educated in Universities and woke colleges. But now that woke is going at school level i can bet in a couple generations they too will be woke if nothing is done.
lucklucky – the West does not have a couple of generations.
Indeed I am astonished that society has not collapsed already – “there is an awful lot of ruin in a great nation”, but the house does eventually fall.
Still perhaps the 2024 Presidential election will not be rigged and America will lead a great fight back in the Western World in 2025. The odds are against this – but it is not impossible.
Paul, I suspect that, with the Trump/DeSantis schism in the R party, the D’s won’t need to cheat to win the presidency in 2024.
bobby b.
In which case the United States of America is finished – it is wrong to think there could real reform in 2029, it will be much too late by then. If 2024 is lost – it-is-over.
No nation is immortal – including Britain.
From what I can see right now, barring some miracle for DeSantis, the GOP primary won’t be close. DeSantis is an impressive governor, but so far as a presidential candidate he’s been pretty dire. I read that most of his campaign money is from wealthy donors and many are already bailing.
The risk more for 2024 is that the media hegemony and deep state, judicial and big business shenanigans will make it superfluous for the democrats to have to actually cheat on voting day.