Closure of Bank Accounts
- Thread starter Bob Morgan
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The Byre
The legal situation is that banks do not have to give reasons. They do however have to comply with the law, banking rules and regulations and the various banking codes of conduct. They can also strike out a customer for having a poor credit rating - in which case the customer can inspect that rating and if an error has been made, have the record rectified.
Assuming that Farrage did not receive funds as a result of suspected criminal activity (the bank only has to suspect - not prove!) which would be ample grounds to close all connections with him, then he has been suspected of contravening the law.
The bank in question was Coutts and I know as a matter of public record that he received money from the Russian State broadcaster. I do not know when this happened, but if it was in the past year or so, then he may have committed the crime of receiving (or being suspected of receiving!) government money from an enemy state.
As much as I find Farage to be a human excrescence for a whole variety of reasons, he closed his broadcast statement with the words "
His closing words were -
There are countries that are tax-havens and where you can have the most absurd and totally ridiculous views imaginable. The UK is one of them. Others include Russia, Italy, Spain and, well, many, many others. Those are countries where you do not have to pay taxes, can campaign to give dogs the vote, wear a floral dress and call yourself the Prophet Uma and live in a tree and pretty much do whatever it is that you want to do.
But don't rock the boat. Here, the establishment will throw you overboard and that's what has happened to Farage. In Russia, you will fall out of a passing window.
Assuming that Farrage did not receive funds as a result of suspected criminal activity (the bank only has to suspect - not prove!) which would be ample grounds to close all connections with him, then he has been suspected of contravening the law.
The bank in question was Coutts and I know as a matter of public record that he received money from the Russian State broadcaster. I do not know when this happened, but if it was in the past year or so, then he may have committed the crime of receiving (or being suspected of receiving!) government money from an enemy state.
As much as I find Farage to be a human excrescence for a whole variety of reasons, he closed his broadcast statement with the words "
Which seems to be the extremely serious but obvious consequences of the banks' actions.
His closing words were -
And in stating that, he is stating something we all should be aware of.
There are countries that are tax-havens and where you can have the most absurd and totally ridiculous views imaginable. The UK is one of them. Others include Russia, Italy, Spain and, well, many, many others. Those are countries where you do not have to pay taxes, can campaign to give dogs the vote, wear a floral dress and call yourself the Prophet Uma and live in a tree and pretty much do whatever it is that you want to do.
But don't rock the boat. Here, the establishment will throw you overboard and that's what has happened to Farage. In Russia, you will fall out of a passing window.
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The (delightful) irony is is that if we were still in the EU he would be guaranteed the right to a bank account
But as with with most things Farage, don’t take his words at face value. I strongly suspect that his account has been closed because of concerns about where the money has come from (probably Russia) and he is getting ahead of the story to manage the narrative. (Much as I dislike (and dislike is not the strongest word I could have used, but it is Sunday afternoon) Farage, he is a canny political and media operator.)
But as with with most things Farage, don’t take his words at face value. I strongly suspect that his account has been closed because of concerns about where the money has come from (probably Russia) and he is getting ahead of the story to manage the narrative. (Much as I dislike (and dislike is not the strongest word I could have used, but it is Sunday afternoon) Farage, he is a canny political and media operator.)
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One person I know of had his accounts closed because of his political views.
Another, from media reports, is a clergyman who questioned the bank branch being festooned with Pride flags.
The lesson is don't speak out when your views don't fit the current activists' views.
You won't have done anything criminal but you'll get destroyed quite legally and nothing you can do about it.
Another, from media reports, is a clergyman who questioned the bank branch being festooned with Pride flags.
The lesson is don't speak out when your views don't fit the current activists' views.
You won't have done anything criminal but you'll get destroyed quite legally and nothing you can do about it.
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Not really.
In theory, yes, the directive you point to gives EU citizens the right to a bank account. But we have that same right in the UK as well and, further, in the UK the account has to be fee-free! From here:
They don't have anything like that in the EU - a compulsion on specific banks.
More details. They have to open your account and if they don't they have to write and give you a reason and if you're not satisfied with the reason you can take it to the Financial Ombudsman's Service.
If you meet all the requirements, they have to open your account. Just like in the EU. (In fact, there is pressure on UK banks to open more "basic accounts"!)
If you don't have ID, you're a known terrorist etc., they can refuse. Just like in the EU.
So let's get off that Remainer bullsh*t bandwagon.
BTW, just so you know, people in the EU, too, get their accounts closed by over-zealous banks. Example.
I don't know where you've been living for the past few years, but the UK isn't one of them. There are a lot of views - even emminently sensible, rational, common-sense views - that people in the UK are not allowed to have. Have those views and you'll get cancelled.
We've just completed the month that was previously known as June. I started a thread about a month being too much for a certain rainbow coloured lobby group when all other major charities and other causes have just a day - IWD, Valentines Day, Mental Health Day etc. I ensured the thread was within the rules of the forum. The management of this forum said I had argued my points fantastically, that my posts were well balanced, and that they were quite diplomatic ...but the thread was removed.
There are some topics on which you can't say anything no matter how polite, logical or scientific your arguments, unless they coincide with a certain lobby group's view.
It's not just forums. As @clyde123 says, there was this case about a clergyman who had his account closed because had certain views guided by the Bible. I've been cancelled by a council, a certain CAMHS service and a couple of large companies simply for stating, in polite terms, that I wouldn't subscribe to a certain ideology with which I didn't agree.
So, no, the UK is no longer a place where you can have any views and certainly not a place where you can voice any views.
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Chris Bryant MP stated Farage had received over half a million quid from Russia Today in 2019.
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Well spotted. I wouldn't have noticed that this thread's been moved to Time Out, a subforum that can be blocked from SEs or deleted altogether.
There are three no-go areas in the UK where you can't question the orthodoxy or even ask questions in the spirit of economic or scientific progress.
1. Brexit
2. Covid
3. (I don't know if I can even mention the topic on this woke forum any more!)
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It’s not rot. It’s a change in business direction. It’s quite possible the timeout forum disappears or is only visible to business members. There are plenty of other fora and platforms where you can discuss non-business topics.
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Almost everything is a business topic! In this case, for example, there's the matter of the business bank account that was also closed!
Small businesses are at risk from random closing of bank accounts. Having their bank account closed would kaput almost all of them immediately. It's a serious risk faced by small businesses today. They need to take a certain woke line ... or run the risk of getting cancelled in a multitude of ways.
You think diversity and inclusion - and the pressure on small businesses to defend their hiring function - is a matter only for large businesses?
You think the woke lobby are attacking only large businesses and not small businesses making cakes or business owners wearing a visible religious symbol like a cross or commenting on Twitter that all lives matter? Small businesses are faced with these dilemmas and problems all the time.
It is disingenuous, deceitful and dodgy to claim to be supporting small businesses while trying to tick the big business / big money ESG box by towing the line dictated by the identity politics, ideologically driven terrorists!
So, sorry, bank accounts being closed is very much a business matter as much as it's a personal matter.
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That fully answers the question I asked some time ago
All good we can say what we want in time out as the googling machine wont pick it up
Now we can talk about sheep
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T
The Byre
I recently announced at a political committee meeting (one of those turgid, boring affairs where people bang on about budgets, campaigns, strategies and boundaries) that I was going to henceforth call myself Fifi Lamore, wear a floral dress and marry a gatepost - all in line with party policy. This announcement was welcomed by all present.
The ex-minister present had earlier got herself into hot water and lost her job because she had said that she believed in the sanctity of marriage. She even went so far as to say that she waited until she was married to the man of her choice before she exchanged body fluids with him. This was so far removed from official party doctrine that she was forced to step down as a minister.
Obviously, she was rocking the boat, a danger to the cause and had to go! One rather large female councilor was nearly in tears of rage when the ex-minister suggested that life should not be one Johnsonesque shag-fest. And the counselor's eight children, three of whom were present, no doubt would have agreed, had their mouths been free of chocolate bars and sweeties.
Your number three is no doubt the sudden and rather startling conversion of politicians, journalists and climatologists to collective amnesia. It has been quite startling how a very well-established scientifically proven phenomenon has been banished from all discussion, study and investigation, other than to go to great lengths to explain why that whole study is suddenly wrong.
I am of course talking about global warming and Milankovitch cycles. All sorts of daft people have been lining up on both sides claiming to be right - when they are both partially right and partially wrong. I shall not go into details here and you can all read up on it here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
Farage's interview fee (as a journalist - yer, right! If he is a journalist, I am a rocket scientist!) is £5,000 and not £500,000. Politicians and mathematics were never close bedfellows!
Anyway, the Treasury is going to make the banks stop their silly games and give non-woke vicars and populist politicos their bank accounts back. The same is happening in Europe BTW - so we can all stop fretting!
I would go a couple of steps further and say that everything is always about economics. Every subject under the sun is always about choices and limited resources. Choices can be ethical as well as material. Resources can be wolves hunting elk or lions hunting gnu. It can be the behavior of trees seeking more sunshine or people finding the optimum pathway between career and family.
GB Shaw once wrote that when he wrote about music (when he was music critic for The Star) he was writing about life itself - and that allowed him to write about anything and everything that came into his head.
When I was an employer of journalists, all of whom had zero training in the art of writing, I used to teach them how, when they are writing about banks or backhoes or diggers or head-up displays in fighter jets or anything else, they must always look for the message and the moral within the story. It is only by doing that, that a story becomes a readable narrative.
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- Original Poster
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Tuesday 04 July 2023 02:45 BST Daily Mail
"Banks are facing a Treasury investigation into claims they are closing customers' accounts because they do not like their views on controversial topics. City Minister Andrew Griffith has been asked to look into allegations that over-zealous lenders are blocking clients without good reason."
Tuesday 04 July 2023 02:50 BST The Guardian
"The Treasury confirmed on Monday that it was already reviewing whether banks were blacklisting customers with controversial political views. Under the new Financial Services and Markets Act, which gained royal assent last week, the City regulator will be looking at how banks deal with PEPs. That review will take place within the next 12 months."
I won't be holding my breath
"Banks are facing a Treasury investigation into claims they are closing customers' accounts because they do not like their views on controversial topics. City Minister Andrew Griffith has been asked to look into allegations that over-zealous lenders are blocking clients without good reason."
Tuesday 04 July 2023 02:50 BST The Guardian
"The Treasury confirmed on Monday that it was already reviewing whether banks were blacklisting customers with controversial political views. Under the new Financial Services and Markets Act, which gained royal assent last week, the City regulator will be looking at how banks deal with PEPs. That review will take place within the next 12 months."
I won't be holding my breath
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T
The Byre
And according to the BBC, Farage had his account canceled because he did not have enough money in it. Coutts is especially strict and wants £1m in investments and/or £3m in savings. Because he had to be a private customer in order to have a business account, the business accounts were also closed, despite having sufficient funds in them.
It is not a retail bank. It is a private bank, i.e., you get a personal service and can for example, phone up and tell your link-man there to buy or sell specific shares or transfer money, etc. (confirmation by email!) They cannot supply that level of service or manage your funds for your retirement - or whatever it is that you require - for low-value clients. That's what the High Street and online banks are there for.
Why the non-woke vicar was binned, I do not know. And when I think about it, I also do not really care!
It is not a retail bank. It is a private bank, i.e., you get a personal service and can for example, phone up and tell your link-man there to buy or sell specific shares or transfer money, etc. (confirmation by email!) They cannot supply that level of service or manage your funds for your retirement - or whatever it is that you require - for low-value clients. That's what the High Street and online banks are there for.
Why the non-woke vicar was binned, I do not know. And when I think about it, I also do not really care!
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Yes, you are the only one. It never occurred to me that Farage is a vapid wind-bag filled with shi7.
Er . . . that's most of them! In fact, my many (too many TBH) years of dealing with human beings, has taught me that the very moment someone tells me that they are working for a higher cause, alarm bells go off in my head.
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I am not sure they are clear groups - there is a huge overlap between some if not all of them
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