… it’s only yours if you share the bank’s  “values”

 

There’s one news item only today which should be of national importance: Nigel Farage and the bank. It’s the modern equivalent of a witch hunt.theI found it amazing how our esteemed MSM reported – or not! – on this issue. ‘Manipulative’ is the description which fits best as Auntie Beeb’s headline for their front apes compilation demonstrates: “Newspaper review: ‘Heatwave from hell’ and Farage’s finances” (link).

Oh Auntie! It ain’t about Mr Farage’s finances even though it was your ‘staff’ which came out with the gossip from yon bank that Mr F was ‘too poor’ to be allowed to keep his account there. See this from the DT’s report on the Coutts’ dossier  (all emphases are mine):

“Earlier this month, the BBC and the Financial Times reported claims that the reason Mr Farage’s accounts were closed was that they fell below the financial threshold required by the bank. The BBC quoted sources “familiar with” the Coutts decision. Yet in the 40 pages of documents released to Mr Farage after he made a subject access request to Coutts, the bank repeatedly says he “meets the EC [economic contribution] criteria for commercial retention”.” (paywalled link)

That’s what happens when a formerly reputable news organisation relies on ‘sources’ rather than on their own, proper research. That’s what happens when a formerly ‘unbiased, impartial’ news organisation prefers to report smears rather than investigating the truth of the matter, for blatant, political reasons. 

There is far more to worry about though. It’s not just about Mr NF and his ‘finances’. The DT reports on the actual timeline of how this decision was reached. It’s chilling:

“When the wealth reputational risk committee at Coutts met on Nov 17 last year, its members were handed a dossier on Nigel Farage that ran to no fewer than 36 pages. […] The committee members were told that a personal banking triage team had “uncovered adverse press” about the former Ukip leader, including such apparent revelations as his preference for Britain to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.” (paywalled link)

So this bank has not just a ‘reputational risk committee’ but they also have a ‘personal banking triage team’ whose ‘work’ is so efficient that only last year they ‘uncovered adverse press’ about NF’s political stance! I am amazed by their perspicacity! And how amazing is it that Mr NF has kept his political views so secret over the years that only last year the dossier writers noticed …! There’s more:

“The dossier noted that “there is no evidence of regulator or legal censure of the client,” that he was unfailingly polite to staff and that he had recently been downgraded from a “higher risk politically exposed person [PEP]” to lower risk, and was on the way to being classed as no risk at all. Closing his accounts was not justifiable on a monetary basis because “the client’s economic contribution is now sufficient to retain on a commercial basis”. ” (paywalled link)

There was no evidence of anything to justify closing Mr NF’s account, according to their own findings. More and more, this looks like a desperate attempt by the ‘dossier creators’ to find something, anything, to justify their decision. Lo and behold – they found something:

“[…] the bank decided that having Mr Farage as a client was no longer “compatible with Coutts given his publicly-stated views that were at odds with our position as an inclusive organisation”, according to minutes of the meeting. It added: “This was not a political decision, but one centred around inclusivity and purpose.” (paywalled link)

Since when are ideological values not political? No matter how they try to spin this: it was a decision based on ideology alone, used with impunity to ‘cancel’  customers’ accounts. Moreover, the bank’s ‘committee’ and dossier makers knew full well that even this argument was as weak as watered milk:

“As Coutts’s own minutes of the Nov 2022 meeting acknowledged: “Although he does not align with our views, is likely [sic] to be the same for a number of the bank’s customers.” (paywalled link)

Will yon bank now close the accounts of all those other customers? They ought to if they want to keep their pristine reputation of impartially adhering to their ‘values’ of ‘inclusivity’ because nothing screams ‘inclusivity’ as loudly as removing all those who do not ‘share our values’. 

It doesn’t stop there. Apparently, yon bank had already tried earlier to ‘get Farage’, ‘reviewing’ him for this ‘reputational risk forum’ in 2018 already “[…] focusing solely on NF’s alleged ‘Russian ties’” but since nothing was found, they “reviewed this case “on a more holistic basis” this time around.” (paywalled link).

If you wonder about this new criterium ’’holistic’, if you wonder why another review was instituted after 2028 – well, look at this: in 2019 a new director of yon bank took over:

“Dame Alison Rose: the bank boss who steered Coutts’ diversity drive – The chief executive of NatWest has overseen a pivot towards saving the planet and LGBT rights since taking the helm” (paywalled link)

I leave it to you to decide if this new, female director imposed her views on the male-dominated bank or if she was selected because lower management was already well indoctrinated in those values and demanded a figurehead. How far has the whole banking industry sunk into deep, wokeristic ‘values’? Isn’t this the slippery slope towards a Chinese system of social control and social engineering? 

Will the banking ombudsman point out to any ‘value-holding’ bank directors that they can only decide about removing customers due to financial reasons, not political ones? What does it say about the other directors of yon bank that they clearly have caved in to ‘political values’ when all else – from PEP risk to Russian connections to ‘wealth’ – has failed? 

Furthermore: why did all other British banks refuse to open an account for Mr NF when the Coutts’ decisions had clearly nothing to do with financial probity or ‘risk of PEP’? Are they now all so woke that we will need a ‘politically clean’ certificate before they touch our money? Or will we need to show our ‘watermelon’ credentials once Labour is in office?

That’s all I have for today. I’ll only note, for the record, that just as in the ‘Bud Light’ saga, just as in the mess of water companies unable to do their duty, it’s always ‘wimmin’ who made those decisions … Have a good day.



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