The Banking Question

The furore over Nigel Farage and his recent challenging banking arrangements has been extremely revealing. In the space of little over a month, the boss of NatWest has been forced to resign and the BBC have issued a grovelling apology to Farage, and not only have we seen how pervasive liberal political activism has become at the very highest levels of the capitalist corporate structure, but we have also seen first hand how completely stupid and myopic the metropolitan liberal left are capable of being when called upon to take a position on a political figure that they disagree with.

Nigel Farage requires very little introduction, but it should be said that, despite the dribbling rantings of social democrats, Guardian readers and others of their ilk, he is not a fascist, nor is he what is termed as ‘far-right’, even though that term means almost nothing these days. Farage is a 1980s-period small ‘c’ conservative, mixed with libertarian tendencies and, crucially, an arch-capitalist who made his fortune as a banker. His politics in 2023 would not be, in any way shape or form, out of place on the Tory backbenches in the Thatcher Governments of 1979-1990 and indeed there have been Tory MPs with far more extreme views on topics including immigration and the European Union or European Economic Community than Farage.

Via his Twitter feed, Farage posted a video at the end of June, where he confirmed that, after some weeks of discussions, he had received a letter from a then unnamed bank, informing him that they had decided to end the business and personal banking relationship that they have had since 1980. Farage went on to say that he had approached seven other banks to set up personal and business accounts and was turned down by all of them. He claimed that the banks who had turned down his business did so because he was what is termed a ‘politically exposed person’ – a person who holds or has held public office and, in so doing, may be more susceptible to bribery and/or corruption.

The bank which had closed down Farage’s accounts was later named as Coutts, a bank that most people would never have heard of because most people don’t have enough money to bank with them. Coutts was founded in 1692 and is one of the oldest banks in the world: It offers services to a very exclusive club of entertainers, entrepreneurs, footballers and lottery winners. They were purchased by Royal Bank of Scotland Group in 2000 and the RBS Group re-branded themselves as the NatWest Group in 2020.

The BBC, an organisation not known for either objective or fair reporting, claimed that Farage’s bank accounts were closed because he didn’t have enough money in them – clients have to have at least £1m in investments or borrowing, or at least £3m in savings. The BBC further stated that Farage’s political views did not influence Coutts’ decision.

Farage then made what is called a Subject Access Request under the General Data Protection Regulations: A legal request that Coutts hand over specific data held in his name. The dossier which Farage received revealed that Coutts’ staff had been compiling evidence against Farage for months on the “significant reputational risks of being associated with him”: They stated the main risks being that he “actively courts controversy”, had “alleged Russia connections” and that his values on immigration and LGBT rights did not align with theirs “as an inclusive organisation”.

A week later, with the evidence that Farage had requested contradicting the BBC’s reporting, they issued their grovelling apology to Farage, saying that their report “turned out not to be accurate” and that “We acknowledge that the information we reported – that Coutts’ decision on Mr Farage’s account did not involve considerations about his political views – turned out not to be accurate and have apologised to Mr Farage.” 

The BBC claimed that their reporting was based on information from a “trusted and senior source”, which subsequently turned out to be NatWest Chief Executive Dame Alison Rose. On 26th July, Rose resigned, apologising to Farage for her “deeply inappropriate comments” which were unearthed in internal correspondence, that he had gained through his Subject Access Request. He claimed that he had been turned down for banking facilities by a total of ten banks and maintained that his accounts were closed down because of his political activity on Brexit, which he said the banks would never forgive him for.

All the while, the actions of the Natwest Group against Farage were applauded by the idiotic liberal left, who essentially supported their actions because Farage holds views on subjects from immigration to Brexit to LGBT rights that they find deeply distasteful. Much like the historical de-platforming of Gender Critical feminists from Twitter, they made the argument that Coutts was a private company and so they could do what they pleased when they decided to close the bank accounts of someone they don’t like. What these individuals fail to understand is that the withdrawal of banking facilities is not only extremely damaging to individuals and organisations, it can and has been used against working class people and will be again unless we stand against it.

During the Miners Strike of 1984-5, the National Union of Mineworkers were fined £200,000 following a court ruling which declared the Yorkshire NUM’s strike as ‘unofficial’. The union refused to pay the fine, so the court ordered that the NUM’s assets be ‘sequestered’, or seized, but the union had managed to transfer their assets abroad and kept back enough cash to pay for whatever expenses they had to pay. 

In February 2022, the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe froze millions of dollars in donations from around the world raised for the ‘Freedom Convoy’: Long-haul lorry drivers who were protesting against a change to Covid-19 vaccine laws which meant that Canadian drivers who were returning from cross-border jobs in the United States had to go into quarantine for fourteen days if they were not vaccinated. In the same month, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act to seize truckers’ bank accounts without a court order, while both of these actions were openly supported by Trotskyites and their allies in the broader left, who claimed that these working class people were an exception because they held ‘far-right’ views. 

In 2015, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, a UK-based campaign group, had its banking facilities closed down by the Cooperative Bank without warning or explanation. That same year, the Cooperative Bank also closed down the account of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, again with no notice or explanation beyond that the American hedge fund, which had taken control of the bank after its disastrous purchase of Britannia Building Society, closed down the account to comply with US legislation sanctioning Cuba, despite the campaign being based in Britain.

These are just a handful of examples of organisations having banking and money-raising facilities closed down, either directly by capitalists or following pressure brought to bear by capitalists. The consistent mistake made by ‘the left’ is that such sanctions are wholly legitimate if the person or group involved holds views that they disagree with. They hide behind the argument that private companies, and the autonomy that that implies, entitles them to act with complete impunity against political opponents, all the while either dismissing or wilfully ignoring the fact that the State has many agents who will act against workers who strike, hold political views that they find potentially threatening or exercise their right to protest.

The left may believe that their support of NatWest’s actions, a huge capitalist entity, is somehow in the name of progressivism, but the truth is that their support is the exact opposite.