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Questions surface about whether Nigel Farage complained when UK banks shut British expats’ accounts

https://leftfootforward.org/2023/07/questions-surface-about-whether-nigel-farage-complained-when-uk-banks-shut-british-expats-accounts/

‘His Brexit is responsible for thousands of British citizens living abroad losing their UK bank accounts. Funny old world…’

The scrote doesn't care that he has made a boat load of cash at the expense of thousands of others. He doesn't care about the thousands of businesses that have gone under because of him and his mates. But when he is hit in the pockets by having to move to a pleb account, then we get questioned in parliament and a plethora of front page headlines about how hard he is done by. When is he ever going to live up to the threats of "I am going to have to leave the UK".

20 comments

Syldon

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Which part of being offered a standard account is difficult for you?

Jackthelad

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Which is useless if you need a business account.

Syldon

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If it was a business account, he would not be paying his mortgage from it.

As a btw, do you think everyone else should be offered the same account that was taken away from Farage?

TheHalc

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I'm one of the people who was forced to close bank accounts, and yeah, it was incredibly inconvenient. I wasn't even able to resolve it overseas and had to travel to the UK to resolve it, being left unable to access my funds for months.

I also think Farage is a self-serving dickhead who is turning the molehill of his own self-inflicted inconvenience into a mountain just to rile up his base.

Still, is it really a realistic suggestion that he should be personally championing every cause that has come about as a result of Brexit? Sure, he bears a lot of responsibility for it happening and it's fair to point out that others are suffering in similar ways due to his actions, but his core failings have nothing to do with the fact that he's not championing those people.

Jackthelad

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Those accounts were closed because of rule changes post-Brexit. They weren't closed because the people had the "incorrect" views.

Syldon

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His account has not been changed because of his views. It was changed because he ran out of funds due to paying off his mortgage. His account was also not closed; he was offered a different service. These people actually had their accounts closed.

Jackthelad

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His account was closed because his views "don't align with their values". There was a 40-page document detailing this where they barely mentioned anything to do with his financial situation.

They also only offered him a personal account, which is useless because his income comes from businesses.

Syldon

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Again he did not have his account closed. They can not refuse a basic bank account; they can refuse you if you want more than a basic bank account, which is the case here. They denied him a service because is a xenophobic racist prick with dubious connections.

Jackthelad

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No one should have their bank accounts closed down because of their political views. Are you familiar with free speech? It's not a crime to have opinions.

As for the "dubious connections" argument, that doesn't stand up either. Coutts themselves acknowledged that there was no evidence of any direct or indirect payments from Russia. All they listed was conspiracy theories.

It annoys me when people base their views on a topic because of the person involved, not the actual issue. I don't have much time for Farage, but this is not about him.

Syldon

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The buses don't go where you live do they? I am going to type this really slowly so you do not miss it again. No one closed his account down. He was refused a service. Repeating the same stupid phrase over and over does not make it true.

As for the “dubious connections” argument, that doesn’t stand up either. Coutts themselves acknowledged that there was no evidence of any direct or indirect payments from Russia. All they listed was conspiracy theories.

I never mentioned Russia at all. Why did you mention it. Do you know something I do not?

Jackthelad

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You can change the wording all you like, being "refused a service" with a bank means you don't have an account with them. This also hasn't just happened to Farage. It's happened to people on the left of politics in the past, and I recently saw the "Wings Over Scotland" Scottish independence group had their bank accounts closed with no explanation as to why.

It's fairly obvious what you meant by "dubious connections", as it's a prominent conspiracy theory.

If you're fine with people losing access to an integral financial service based purely on their political views, then don't come crying on the day your views are classed as "incorrect".

Jaccident

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I am generally in agreement that you should have a right to a degree of free speech without being impacted by things like bank restrictions; that said, he seems only to care in his instance. Private wealth clientele at almost every bank have traditionally been under a greater scrutiny due to the inherent risk of reputational damage they can inflict, and the standard for this has always gone UP for celebrities and politicians. The reason he hasn’t cared before is that most of these institutions are right-leaning if not right wing; they’ve therefore not used these rules on people to the right of the spectrum unless they were affiliates/members of a banned group. We should all be wondering how Nigel got so far right a bank full of hedge fund managers wanted to lose connection to him.

Jackthelad

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The thing I don't understand is that if his politics was such an issue, why did they give him an account in the first place? He was a more prominent political figure then and they knew what his views were.

And denying someone a new account is different to kicking out an existing customer.

Jaccident

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KYC is an ongoing process though, that’s actually a statutory mandate in the UK as it closely ties into things like AML laws. That also means that, as the views of an organisation change, they come to reassess their business with people.

In another way, as the world changes, so does that person within it. Coutts might have had Mugabe when he was a knight of the realm, or pals with Maggie, but as the world changed I imagine they would have reached a point of no longer wanting a business relationship with him.

Thing is, Nigel knew and has signed that he understands, that as a public figure the bank may break ties with him over his public statements. He may have been more visible before, but if the ads I see on my mum’s YouTube are any indication, he’s making a lot of money from people selling financial snake oil; maybe that’s the straw that broke the Coutts’ back.

Edit: also, he wasn’t denied an account; he was denied some specific private wealth management perks.

teamonkey

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This is what highly regulated companies like banks, law firms, insurance companies etc. do for all Politically Exposed Persons. It’s not about corporate values, it’s about risk exposure, especially if there’s the possibility of a conflict of interest.

For example, a bank will want to know if there’s a risk of that person being subject to international sanctions due to people they have met or accepted money from, or a risk that a person’s finances may be investigated for fraud, or if someone is suing that person using using the same lawyers the bank uses. They create a report of anything that may be relevant in future and keep it up to date.

The “doesn’t align with our values” is PR for “this guy’s too risky for the amount of money he has”

NuPNuA

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Syldon

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They cannot refuse him a banking account because of EU legislation. Natwest doesn't give a monkeys about his politics. They have people on their books in times past that are a lot worse. Pinochet being the most notable from memory. All Natwest care about is making money, and Farage obviously does not tick that box anymore.