Lord Frost has written an excellent column in today’s Telegraph warning that if Coutts is allowed to get away with ‘de-banking’ Nigel Farage, none of us are safe. Here‘s how it begins:
Every so often, a news story captures our society’s dysfunctions. Often only minor in itself, it is its very pedestrian quality that is so revealing. The actors aren’t playing to the gallery. They are saying what they really think when they believe that no-one is listening, and acting as they really want to when they think that they can get away with it. That is why they so often capture the spirit of the age.
The saga of Nigel Farage and his Coutts bank account is one such story. The only appropriate response to it is cold fury, mixed with deep, deep, apprehension.
Someone has lost their bank account because the bank didn’t like their opinions. Not very long ago, this would have seemed literally incredible. “Why would the bank care about your opinions?” we would have said. It’s a free country, isn’t it?
The Farage case is important for many reasons, but the most obvious is that, if we don’t stop it here, the same thing will happen to many others. Indeed, it is clear, from the accounts that have since emerged, that it already has. “Nigel is one of the best-known politicians in the country,” people will be thinking. “If even he can be left without a bank account, then obviously it can happen to me, too.” This chilling effect is why it’s so crucial that this never happens again.
It’s important, too, because of the childish yet dangerous politics that underlie it.
Dangerous because it is so obvious from the now-released Coutts dossier that the bank’s decision-makers see only one world view as reasonable. Opinions widely held by many people, including me – criticism of net zero, doubts about diversity, equity, and inclusion, uncertainty about the wilder fringes of the LGBTIQ+ etc movement, and of course support for Brexit and concerns about immigration – all are treated as not just a matter for disagreement but an offence against today’s household gods.
Sign up, or be cast out. Anyone who doesn’t believe that we are already in a culture war – and losing it – should read the Farage dossier.
And it’s childish, too. The Coutts papers read as if written by gullible schoolchildren with a Marxist teacher. Criticising BLM is “incit[ing] race hate”. Wikipedia is cited as if it were a reliable source – as is the far-Left boycott group “Hope not Hate”. Even the repeated comment that Farage is “polite to staff” is revealing, as if they find it surprising from someone with his opinions.
But the Farage affair has also highlighted the decline in our culture of freedom. Far too few people spoke up when he first made his allegations. All too many (step forward Jon Sopel) were ready to believe the feeble and, in the light of events, clearly misleading Coutts “explanation” for its actions, relayed by the BBC. And many actively rejoiced in his ‘de-banking’ – a horrible neologism, by the way, hopefully going down the memory hole fast.
Plainly, views of Nigel himself had a role here. As so often with SW1 commentators, their dislike of the man blinded them to reality. With so many people going public about their loss of banking facilities for political reasons, was it really plausible that Farage would not turn out to be one of them, too? But the initial glee at his misfortune infected even some who might have been expected to be more sympathetic. One leading figure at a conservative magazine summed it up yesterday, writing (not ironically): “Very bitterly regretting that Coutts appears to be in the wrong here and Nigel Farage in the right.”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: The Telegraph has compiled a list of customers Coutts has deemed perfectly acceptable over the years, including General Pinochet, Mafia leader Emilio Di Giovine, Russian oligarchs and human rights abusers.
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We’re all victims one way or another. European civilisation will be the victim.
‘….the Farage affair has also highlighted the decline in our culture of freedom’
Spot on!
What has caused this decline?
The Blair government and the ‘Human Rights’ Act 1998.
Lord Frost goes on to recommend a Free Speech Act; a good idea…..
But not before repealing the ‘Human Rights’ Act itself.
That Act is responsible for so much that is plainly wrong, unfree, now in a Britain that has taken on so many of the trappings of totalitarian socialism since 1997, all of which the Conservative party has signally failed to address and, particularly under the egregious Bunter, in many cases compounded.
They are, have been, in government, for the most part, an absolute disgrace; such an expensive, disastrous, disappointment…..
They will pay the price for that….but the entire country is paying, and will continue to pay, a far higher price for their extended, quite staggering, incompetence.
Bliar should be arrested and face treason charges for what he’s done to Britain.
Given the fact he was awarded the highest honour in the land by the Queen a while back, should by rights tell anybody with an IQ of room temperature and above what the real score is for the ‘subjects’..
Lawyers have made millions out of the Human Rights Act and the commons is full of them. They are all pi$$ing in the same pot I’m afraid.
“This must not happen again,” or any specific action or law to ensure that it doesn’t, fails to address the major issues behind it, just as some new law to make sure parents are told about their kids “transitioning” at school would be – the corrupters would still be there, finding new and more hidden strategies.
Those seeing the writing on the wall, and who have any political clout (including Nigel, Toby and Lord Frost) need to be addressing the question of how to combat the complete ideological subversion of a country. Or rather, an entire culture, because to treat this as a British problem is also a mistake.
It’s hard to think of a parallel in history to draw from that didn’t end in failure, such as nations already largely subverted from within by fascism or communism, which were usually too genteel, or corrupt, to purge the rot. Perhaps the attempt to reverse the Reformation by James II is a parallel – if so, the response needed was politically radical.
Or maybe we need look no further than Hungary, or any other country painted by our press as an anti-democratic autocracy. After all, the whole progressive strategy is to hide tyranny behind weasel-words of niceness.
The answers to our current predicament do not lie in passing further laws but possibly in revoking many current statutes. What has become abundantly clear these last three years is that the rule of law is complete fiction. If the establishment considers adherence to the law will suit their cause then the relevant law is binding. If current law does not suit then it can be ignored or trampled on at will.
Until ‘stakeholder capitalism’ is declared illegal and ESG-style ratings banned, this culture of businesses running their own legal systems under the moniker of ‘values’ where they can play judge, jury and executioner with employees’ careers and clients’ livelihoods – and those of their family members – and their own Stasi-like intelligence operations will continue. The job of a business is to maximise profits for its shareholders. If that clashes with societal concerns, that’s where regulators and elected government gets involved. No business should get involved with governance or with funding political campaigning groups. No business should get involved with its workers’ outside lives unless it involves major criminality which prevents that employee doing his job – ie he gets sent to prison for murder or some such.
There’s a swathe of ‘social conditioning’ that needs tearing out of modern business, including any involvement with pressure groups such as Stonewall (a consultancy masquerading as a charity), any ratings systems that put pressure on non-business activities and any attacks on members of someone’s family in retaliation for that person’s behaviour. All ‘unconscious bias’ training and similar should be banned.
These problems begin in academia and have spread to HR departments, filtering who gets hired, which then spreads the ideology to the upper echelons. I’m in my late 40s and I know my generation was extremely apolitical when I was younger. We all laughed at activist students. Unfortunately that minority of activist types are now in the upper echelons of major businesses while the majority of us apolitical types are being dictated to by the very people we despised: the fag-ends of Generation X who hate their Post-War Bulge parents, a few Oregon Trail Generation people (as a small sub-generation we’re stuck with the excesses of the big generations) and a bunch of Millennials.
The funding of political parties also needs looking at. Businesses should no longer be allowed to fund parties and neither should unions. All funding should come from private citizens, generally through membership of that party. Any large private donations or cumulative large donations must result in the donor being named. If that donor is affiliated to an extremist group such as JSO – whose activities are killing people by holding sick people up in ambulances and the like, making them a murderous terrorist organisation – the entire donation has to be returned.
The entire sleaze-ridden culture needs removing. A good start would be to add a field at the bottom of ballot papers in elections saying ‘None of the above’. If ‘None of the above’ wins, the election has to be held again six weeks later and none of the parties on the paper is allowed to field candidates and all new candidates standing will be obliged to reveal any links to political parties. That would clean out much of Westminster overnight. Also, ‘reset’ the House of Lords. Immediately abolish all existing life peerages, then the parties can select 200 new peers between them, to be reassessed every eight years.
Unless there’s fundamental urgent change, a few new laws will simply make the banks and other businesses more secretive in their practices, potentially putting the decision makers in other countries to circumvent national laws.
Indeed, though it gets awkward. Imagine you are a small business owner/sole trader, and someone you regard as your mortal enemy wants you to do something for them. Would you want to be legally obliged to do so.
I think where there are multiple providers then it would be good to let the market cover all requirements and everyone is free to choose with whom they do business. Where you have monopoly providers of basic services, or providers who are in lockstep, is where you get a problem. They already cannot discriminate based on “protected characteristics” – something I am in some ways not keen on – but maybe that should be extended so that they cannot discriminate on any basis at all unless you’ve done something like assault their staff or whatever.
We already discriminate in law between ‘big business’ and SMEs. There need to be rules that apply to a relevant business. There’s a word of difference between refusing to supply someone with a necessity such as electricity (and all the similar suppliers ganging up to refuse when one does) and refusing to bake him a custom cake when lots of people bake cakes!
Yes something along those lines.
Nigel Farage is Latest Victim of Woke Authoritarianism, Britain’s Chilling New State Ideology..
Only if we allow it..
Trouble is, ‘Britain’s Chilling New State Ideology’ comes from multinational businesses and supranational organisations. This has to be hammered hard and will require many countries to clamp down on it, particularly in the USA, which is currently run by a shadowy cabal with a mental cabbage as its front man!
Spot on!
By-elections results were a massive vote for the Uniparty state. People are overwhelmingly voting for more authoritarianism, wittingly or unwittingly.
I’ve seen people demanding fresh new laws to stop this from happening, but what we really need is a bonfire of existing laws and regulations. As with Illegal Immigration, new law is often contradicted by old law. I agree that the Human Rights Act should be first on our list, followed by the ECHR and our commitments to ‘international’ treaties. Get rid of them for Gods sake. Too much law, too many lawyers.
Agreed. What does need to be stated is that companies cannot run their own legal systems and all practices have to be inside of the various British laws. Right now, company ‘values’ are being used as a legal system within and between corporations that sidestep national laws. More than anything, as you say, we need to withdraw from large numbers of international treaties and put lawmaking back in the hands of the people we elect.
I am a NatWest Bank account holder. I sent the attached letter to Alison Rose, Chief Executive Officer of NatWest Group today. I know it’s only a gesture but it’s my gesture.
Very well done. I did similar with the Halifax when they started displaying what I truly regard as a symbol of incipient fascism in their branches.
Well said, BB! When I get the chance, I will move my accounts as well. I’ve not been keen on ‘NatWest’ (let’s be honest: it’s still RBS!) being mostly owned by the Government anyway. I’ll probably time the move for the end of my company’s tax year. The key thing is that I need to find out which bank is least woke!
Well if you find out, please let me know! I suspect there will be an element of frying pan and fire, but I suppose that 46 years of being a customer at least added some weight to my position.
Yeah, my first account was a NatWest Piggy Bank account when I was 10. Prior to that I had a TSB Jeans Scheme account. So I go back 38 years with NatWest. My Mum’s first account was with the Westminster Bank in the 1960s and my Dad’s with the National Provincial Bank in the 1950s, meaning they became NatWest clients by default. Frankly, NatWest went downhill when RBS and Fred ‘the Shred’ took over years ago.
This is my first and probably the only comment i will ever make, i always find others are far more eloquent than i ever could be. However this is the finest letter i have ever read, congratulations sir it’s a masterpiece.
Wow, I didn’t expect that! Thank you, you are very kind.
You can rest assured that your comments would be welcomed here on DS. No need to talk yourself down.
You should post your opinions Chesterbear. I’m not that eloquent or as informed as many who post here, but every experience and every opinion counts.
We want to hear yours.
Well done Boomer Bloke.
I moved my account from them for commercial reasons. They didn’t offer competitive interest. They were too busy doing other things, I guess.
Well done. Fabulous letter. I wish I had an account with them to close, but I don’t.
As one who has written, filmed and researched this subject extensively, may I offer my own definition of wokism …
Wokism aka political correctness is the systematic eradication of Judeo-Christian culture and tradition from a society.
I’ve seen hundreds of articles attempting to pin it down and sorry, they all miss the mark. Articles like the one above show up some symptoms, not the root.
The reason? This is a spiritual war, not a political or ideological battle.
Check out any consultant and they’ll tell you you can’t fix a problem unless, and it’s a big ‘unless’, you have identified the root cause.
Until we agree on this we’ll fail.
And unfortunately the leaders of the Western Christian Churches are in lockstep helping with this!
NatWest group: Banking for socialists.
Coutts: Banking for rich socialists.
Well, it has hit the fan now with Coutts apology to Farage. This is going to be the start of something big.
It is time to close your NatWest account before the bank goes under.
At least bone up on the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, and reduce you cash balance to within the limit in case they go bust. Although the Gov has been selling off some of their shares, they still own roughly a third of NatWest.
DSers might be interested in this feedback from a large local credit union as an alternative to consider (no current account options, however) and which I thought quite helpful:
We don’t have a formal ESG score metric or rating that we subscribe to ourselves, though we do measure our social impact (see our most recent report here:xxxxxxx and the full document here: xxxxxx
Although we prefer the bulk of members’ savings to be helping other members through our lending we are required by our regulator to hold certain levels of liquid assets in the form of bank deposits. We do aim to hold these deposits as ethically as we can, for example with banks that are focussed on social and/or environmental impact before profit, and with fellow mutuals such as building societies. However we also have rules which limit how much we can hold with any one institution which means we can’t deposit all of our liquid funds in this way, so we do also have deposits with other banks, and from time-to-time in Treasury bonds. We don’t use ESG scores as a way of choosing our counter-parties at present.
We’re not currently signed up to any Stonewall Diversity schemes as we tend to support local initiatives to improve inclusion and diversity rather than national schemes. We are a relatively small employer, but are always willing to consider suggestions from members on how we can improve our equality, diversity and inclusion work to ensure fair treatment and opportunity for all.
Please do let us know if you have any further questions at all.
“We don’t have a formal ESG score metric…”
That opening phrase would put me right off.
Once again, they’ve gone too far and got a backlash they didn’t expect.
Apart from anything else, it will have woken up a great number of people to the dangers of a cashless society ….. and make their desired CBDC and cashless society much harder to implement.
I don’t doubt that’s the only reason Sunak gave (mild) support to Farage and appears to be prepared to rein-in the out-of-control Woke Banksters.
Looking forward to the resignation of the NatWest CEO today. Breaching client confidentiality is what she would sack her underlings for so bye bye you damn Dame
Are those of us who see freedom vanishing going to have to go to Coutts and any other cancel culture organisations and spray paint their buildings . It seems the only way anyone in authority listens these days is if you kick up a stink.
Farage needs to urgently relaunch UKIP, this time against woke authoritarianism rather than the EU.