This isn't Russia or China (Carl Court/Getty Images)
Coercion and tyranny are what governments do to us, whereas the private sector is where choice, consent, and spontaneity reign. This is one of the bedrock certainties of the modern Anglo-American Right, and each day brings fresh evidence that it’s a myth. Nigel Farage is only the latest ardent free-marketeer to learn the lesson the hard way.
Last month, the former Ukip and Brexit Party leader had his account unceremoniously terminated by his financial institution, the London-based Coutts. Initially, Coutts claimed that the move was based purely on “commercial” considerations, having to do with Farage’s failure to meet a requisite “financial threshold”. Yet as the firm’s internal deliberations have revealed, the decision to de-bank Farage had almost entirely to do with his political views and associations.
In a meeting last November, Coutts’s reputational-risk committee counselled against “continuing to bank” Farage given his “publicly stated views that were at odds with our position as an inclusive organisation”. Farage’s crimes include his use of “globalist” as a pejorative; his “‘useful idiot’ admiration” for Vladimir Putin; his retweeting of Ricky Gervais lampooning gender ideology; and his meeting with vaccine-sceptical tennis champ Novak Djokovic.
De-banking, and the freezing of digital assets and transactions, form a relatively new strategy for suppressing dissent in supposedly non-coercive market societies. It was first deployed in the wake of the Jan. 6 riot in Washington, when PayPal blocked a Christian crowdfunding site that facilitated fundraising for detained protesters. Days later, GoFundMe said it would ban any crowdfunding campaigns for travel to political rallies “where there is a potential for violence”.
The following year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government invoked Canada’s Emergency Act to de-bank truck drivers involved in an anti-vaccine-mandate uprising. As Canadian-born trucker and activist Gord Magill reported, Trudeau’s financial crackdown was “far more sweeping than initially believed: Not only personal bank accounts, but insurance policies, investments, and business activities of anyone targeted by the government were suspended.”
Coutts’s de-banking of Farage takes these developments still further. He lost his account owing to his exercise of free speech on issues, not least Brexit, over which reasonable Britons disagree. He wasn’t involved in any febrile street movement (not that that should ever justify losing one’s bank account). Nor was the decision taken at the behest of any public, governmental authority subject to democratic accountability.
The de-banking of Farage is thus an especially glaring case of what I call private tyranny: the unjust and often-systematic coercion that suffuses our lives as workers and consumers.
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SubscribeThe bank’s reputation was unaffected by the existence of Farage’s account; it was (by law) a private matter. Only upon cancellation did it become public (therefore a matter of repute good or bad)
What was affected by the existence of the account was the amour propre of Coutts and Natwest executives. Dare I mention Alison Rose the CEO of Natwest and WEF associate. Like many bad decisions these days the cancellation was motivated by narcissism.
The bank’s reputation is now in the toilet and it is open to lawsuit, damages and possible loss of licence.
Farage is a combative guy. How could the narcissists not have seen this coming? Gaze at your reflection in the water long enough and you don’t notice the crocodile.
True. Had they left Farage alone they might have carried on ditching other less feisty customers whose values are in danger of diminishing the bank’s lofty moral status. I sincerely hope they lose their licence – an example needs to be set.
I just read B.Johnson’s Daily Mail column in which he says exactly the same as I did above. And uses a whole page for it. And fails to mention ‘narcissism’ or the crocodile.
But, I realise, he is paid by the word. And now it dawns on me that payment by the word was his method of government.
True. Had they left Farage alone they might have carried on ditching other less feisty customers whose values are in danger of diminishing the bank’s lofty moral status. I sincerely hope they lose their licence – an example needs to be set.
I just read B.Johnson’s Daily Mail column in which he says exactly the same as I did above. And uses a whole page for it. And fails to mention ‘narcissism’ or the crocodile.
But, I realise, he is paid by the word. And now it dawns on me that payment by the word was his method of government.
The bank’s reputation was unaffected by the existence of Farage’s account; it was (by law) a private matter. Only upon cancellation did it become public (therefore a matter of repute good or bad)
What was affected by the existence of the account was the amour propre of Coutts and Natwest executives. Dare I mention Alison Rose the CEO of Natwest and WEF associate. Like many bad decisions these days the cancellation was motivated by narcissism.
The bank’s reputation is now in the toilet and it is open to lawsuit, damages and possible loss of licence.
Farage is a combative guy. How could the narcissists not have seen this coming? Gaze at your reflection in the water long enough and you don’t notice the crocodile.
This will seem to be off-topic, but one subtle issue that is underpinning this is the move to systems of privacy rather than systems of anonymity.
In the current system of privacy it is assumed that banks will have lots of information about their customers (know-your-customer) but protected by ‘privacy’. The thing is that the privacy is a smokescreen – governments demand information is collected and acted on and will use the law to penetrate the smokescreen. Privacy has lots and lots of data collected, with the tissue paper protection of a form and ‘consent’ which really offers very little protection from the eyes of the state while the consent form passes risk from the data collector to the data subject (you agreed…).
In a system of anonymity, businesses treat all customers as if they know nothing about the customer – equality through ignorance. They avoid collecting or analysing data to identify the customer. The absence of data and belief that all customers are equal means services are delivered without prejudice and, since no data is collected, it is difficult for interference from a prying state. In this way, anonymity offers more protection than a system of privacy.
A very good distinction. Thank you.
A very good distinction. Thank you.
This will seem to be off-topic, but one subtle issue that is underpinning this is the move to systems of privacy rather than systems of anonymity.
In the current system of privacy it is assumed that banks will have lots of information about their customers (know-your-customer) but protected by ‘privacy’. The thing is that the privacy is a smokescreen – governments demand information is collected and acted on and will use the law to penetrate the smokescreen. Privacy has lots and lots of data collected, with the tissue paper protection of a form and ‘consent’ which really offers very little protection from the eyes of the state while the consent form passes risk from the data collector to the data subject (you agreed…).
In a system of anonymity, businesses treat all customers as if they know nothing about the customer – equality through ignorance. They avoid collecting or analysing data to identify the customer. The absence of data and belief that all customers are equal means services are delivered without prejudice and, since no data is collected, it is difficult for interference from a prying state. In this way, anonymity offers more protection than a system of privacy.
The problem is that Coutts has been captured by the B Corp Certification programme and is terrified by other rent-seeking grifters like Stonewall and BLM.
Even my son’s hard-nosed venture capital firm found it less trouble to take on a diversity hire than to tell such organisations to get lost.
Most of us are not in a position to express our feelings by disinvesting. (We can, though, when it comes to products like Budweiser and Gillette.) But we should do whatever we can to get this widely talked about and criticised. Coutts has now backed down and apologised, showing that the spineless will bend to pressure from both sides. A good place to start is reminding people that the Coutts clowns claim to be in favour of “inclusivity”. So much so, they’ll include anyone except those who have less than a million pounds to invest.
The apology was hollow
It was utterly dishonest. The statement saying “not the view of the bank” would be considered as a downright lie by many people.
As evidenced by the offer of NatWest banking rather than the full reinstatement of his Coutts accounts.
It was utterly dishonest. The statement saying “not the view of the bank” would be considered as a downright lie by many people.
As evidenced by the offer of NatWest banking rather than the full reinstatement of his Coutts accounts.
The apology was hollow
The problem is that Coutts has been captured by the B Corp Certification programme and is terrified by other rent-seeking grifters like Stonewall and BLM.
Even my son’s hard-nosed venture capital firm found it less trouble to take on a diversity hire than to tell such organisations to get lost.
Most of us are not in a position to express our feelings by disinvesting. (We can, though, when it comes to products like Budweiser and Gillette.) But we should do whatever we can to get this widely talked about and criticised. Coutts has now backed down and apologised, showing that the spineless will bend to pressure from both sides. A good place to start is reminding people that the Coutts clowns claim to be in favour of “inclusivity”. So much so, they’ll include anyone except those who have less than a million pounds to invest.
Private Tyranny + Public Tyranny. Great! These are the fruits of the UK allowing the inherently repressive blanket Napoleonic European Codification of Law System to choke the freer Anglo Saxon Common Law system that resulted in our dynamism freedom and energy. This disaster (read Scruton and weep) is why the petty authoritarians of the progressive Left have been able to turn the screw – EQA, NMI, DEI – and make us more like a sickly East Germany of 1980s. The British State is endemically hamstrung and has a taste for coercion. We have lost our liberties and the capacity to operate as a sovereign state. We remain trapped in an NHS First Socialist still cloned EU province. We are oppressed. We are no longer free. We are UK Traumazone Ep 3. Read the mad secret Memo of the City Elders and – seriously – wake the F up.
As I understand it, the Napoleonic system is where all is prohibited unless expressly permitted and codified by the state. The Anglo Saxon system is where the default is all is permitted unless expressly prohibited.
Excellent comment. I always feared that the EU was a wolf in sheeps clothing and the feverish over-writing of English Common law are just one indication that my instincts were correct. In my opinion the EU is a tool of the Globalist movement to demolish nation states and governments. The recent hard nosed moves agains farming in Holland and Ireland, the overt push for censorship of any opinion that doesn’t bow to that which is authorised by the EU is also evidence of where we are heading. Despite ‘Brexit’ we are still going along with so much of it because we are enmeshed and tangled in that bureaucracy with many determined to maintain its grip.
‘In Gramsci’s own words, he viewed the task thus: “Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity. … In the new order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches, and the media by transforming the consciousness of society.”’
As I understand it, the Napoleonic system is where all is prohibited unless expressly permitted and codified by the state. The Anglo Saxon system is where the default is all is permitted unless expressly prohibited.
Excellent comment. I always feared that the EU was a wolf in sheeps clothing and the feverish over-writing of English Common law are just one indication that my instincts were correct. In my opinion the EU is a tool of the Globalist movement to demolish nation states and governments. The recent hard nosed moves agains farming in Holland and Ireland, the overt push for censorship of any opinion that doesn’t bow to that which is authorised by the EU is also evidence of where we are heading. Despite ‘Brexit’ we are still going along with so much of it because we are enmeshed and tangled in that bureaucracy with many determined to maintain its grip.
‘In Gramsci’s own words, he viewed the task thus: “Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity. … In the new order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches, and the media by transforming the consciousness of society.”’
Private Tyranny + Public Tyranny. Great! These are the fruits of the UK allowing the inherently repressive blanket Napoleonic European Codification of Law System to choke the freer Anglo Saxon Common Law system that resulted in our dynamism freedom and energy. This disaster (read Scruton and weep) is why the petty authoritarians of the progressive Left have been able to turn the screw – EQA, NMI, DEI – and make us more like a sickly East Germany of 1980s. The British State is endemically hamstrung and has a taste for coercion. We have lost our liberties and the capacity to operate as a sovereign state. We remain trapped in an NHS First Socialist still cloned EU province. We are oppressed. We are no longer free. We are UK Traumazone Ep 3. Read the mad secret Memo of the City Elders and – seriously – wake the F up.
The most alarming thing for me about this farce is the number of people playing the man rather than the precedent. I appreciate Farage is very unpopular in numerous circles, but it was quite staggering to see how many would celebrate him potentially denied access to his money (a rather sadistic and bullying thing to do) and that they couldn’t see this might one day happen to them. Political and social opinions go in and out of fashion all the time.
One day the left wing progressives will be on the wrong side of the argument and it could be them getting cancelled and having their accounts closed. If and when that day comes, how many will come to their aid? Not many I wager.
It may be a generational thing. At the London Times the top comments under 9pm articles about Farage/Coutts are dismissive of Farage and totalitarian in flavour. The top comments under 12.01am articles are overwhelmingly appalled at what happened, even though many dislike the man.They’re classical liberal in flavour. I suspect the late evening commenters are working age whereas the morning and daytime commenters are retired. It’s very worrying.
It may be a generational thing. At the London Times the top comments under 9pm articles about Farage/Coutts are dismissive of Farage and totalitarian in flavour. The top comments under 12.01am articles are overwhelmingly appalled at what happened, even though many dislike the man.They’re classical liberal in flavour. I suspect the late evening commenters are working age whereas the morning and daytime commenters are retired. It’s very worrying.
The most alarming thing for me about this farce is the number of people playing the man rather than the precedent. I appreciate Farage is very unpopular in numerous circles, but it was quite staggering to see how many would celebrate him potentially denied access to his money (a rather sadistic and bullying thing to do) and that they couldn’t see this might one day happen to them. Political and social opinions go in and out of fashion all the time.
One day the left wing progressives will be on the wrong side of the argument and it could be them getting cancelled and having their accounts closed. If and when that day comes, how many will come to their aid? Not many I wager.
In a communist state the state takes responsibility for censorship and oppression of political opponents, in the current flavor of global fascism this is outsourced to more than willing private sector. There are lot of wannabe fascists who in “good” old days would be just anonymous Stasi informants. Now they feel really empowered.
In a communist state the state takes responsibility for censorship and oppression of political opponents, in the current flavor of global fascism this is outsourced to more than willing private sector. There are lot of wannabe fascists who in “good” old days would be just anonymous Stasi informants. Now they feel really empowered.
You know, I suspect that some deputy assistant to the assistant to Sir Humphrey Appleby is behind this. Nice little bank you got here; pity if something should happen to it.
I understand your suspicion, but I think the situation is worse than an anonymous apparatchik subtly threatening a bank if it doesn’t toe the party line.
DEI now permeates big business. The executives don’t want to be on the wrong side of what they perceive to be the currently dominant ideology. They’re also signed on to globalism where all barriers (physical, legal, cultural) to free trade must be stripped away and anyone opposing globalism punished. And, of course, they’re more than happy to virtue signal.
Their organizations are populated by DEI commissars who carry around large folders of rules and guidelines and their sole function is to apply those guidelines mindlessly. The rules take on a life of their own and no one dare apply common sense and accidentally expose the nonsense at the core of these beliefs. In a sense, there is no one to blame once mindless ideology takes over.
It looks like the UK government might be taking a stand on this issue (I’m not sure). That’s the only way this stuff will end, when government punishes the cancellers and consumers boycott them.
As an ultra-exclusive bank, I’d love to see Coutts besieged by hordes of ordinary people asking to open an account to cash their unemployment benefits. Or, rather, I’d love to see the social media storm when “inclusive, caring” Coutts turns them away.
Only a year ago I heard Rishi banging the drum for this insanity with the City. Just as the Canadian Woke High Priest was doing. Forget Farage. The State has unleashed its Equalitarian Mind Virus on the Corporate Boardrooms. To the delight of the anti capitalist Left, these fanatics have stopped investments in oil and gas and in defence industries. It is economic suicide. Westminster is Jamestown.
Isn’t it time that the unprecedented power and influence of vast global corporations such as Blackrock were investigated? The problem is so much is owned by such corporations and they are calling the tune we are all expected to dance too.
Only a year ago I heard Rishi banging the drum for this insanity with the City. Just as the Canadian Woke High Priest was doing. Forget Farage. The State has unleashed its Equalitarian Mind Virus on the Corporate Boardrooms. To the delight of the anti capitalist Left, these fanatics have stopped investments in oil and gas and in defence industries. It is economic suicide. Westminster is Jamestown.
Isn’t it time that the unprecedented power and influence of vast global corporations such as Blackrock were investigated? The problem is so much is owned by such corporations and they are calling the tune we are all expected to dance too.
I understand your suspicion, but I think the situation is worse than an anonymous apparatchik subtly threatening a bank if it doesn’t toe the party line.
DEI now permeates big business. The executives don’t want to be on the wrong side of what they perceive to be the currently dominant ideology. They’re also signed on to globalism where all barriers (physical, legal, cultural) to free trade must be stripped away and anyone opposing globalism punished. And, of course, they’re more than happy to virtue signal.
Their organizations are populated by DEI commissars who carry around large folders of rules and guidelines and their sole function is to apply those guidelines mindlessly. The rules take on a life of their own and no one dare apply common sense and accidentally expose the nonsense at the core of these beliefs. In a sense, there is no one to blame once mindless ideology takes over.
It looks like the UK government might be taking a stand on this issue (I’m not sure). That’s the only way this stuff will end, when government punishes the cancellers and consumers boycott them.
As an ultra-exclusive bank, I’d love to see Coutts besieged by hordes of ordinary people asking to open an account to cash their unemployment benefits. Or, rather, I’d love to see the social media storm when “inclusive, caring” Coutts turns them away.
You know, I suspect that some deputy assistant to the assistant to Sir Humphrey Appleby is behind this. Nice little bank you got here; pity if something should happen to it.
To paraphrase Recep Erdogan: in the minds of many, the free market is like a bus–when you get to your stop, you get off.
To paraphrase Recep Erdogan: in the minds of many, the free market is like a bus–when you get to your stop, you get off.
Alison ROSE* has made a grovelling apology.
Should it be enough to save her? Or should she be ‘destroyed’?
(* CEO Nat West/Coutts).
If she and the entire Board do not resign or are not sacked, expect yet more horrors. It is a test case. A Czech 38 moment.
How could this happen?
Despite her somewhat ‘agricultural’ appearance, my spies tell me she is from a military family. She attended a good if not outstanding University,* where she read History, and is a Dame of the British Empire……..So what the hell went wrong?
ps.She is also married to another money lender
(*Durham.)
We can only guess. But I think we know the trigger – the unacknowledged ongoing dirty civil war between this gilded Elite and Establishment – one enriched wildly by the rigging of the Property Market from the 90s, a trillion pound bubble dependent on the uncontrolled free movement of 5/6 million Europeans and the failure to provide new homes for this demographic surge. Brexit posed a deadly threat to this status quo and their entitlement to 100k+ untaxed )cap gain per annum. They are Golums. This venal greedy immoral Elite just went mad in 2016. The Brex battle generated a full blown national breakdown and a near psychotic hysteria. These Elite Remainers HATE. They do not forgive. Hence the Civil Service is busy topping Brexiteers for ‘bullying’ & the job is near done. Journos and politicos lie about Russian gold. It wont stop. And their derangement – and the powerful groupthink and fear of ostracism that links them – has seen addled spun minds adopt all the other new credos that – like loving the EU – similarly mark them out to their peers and to the plebby Old Brex heretics as the Virtuous Ones. The Elect. Higher moral beings. This is why Remainia and Net Zero and the BLM and Pride all affix together in their scared but hyper aggressive minds. This is why the likes of that Dame have so rankly but knowingly failed us and almost all the UK’s institutions.
We can only guess. But I think we know the trigger – the unacknowledged ongoing dirty civil war between this gilded Elite and Establishment – one enriched wildly by the rigging of the Property Market from the 90s, a trillion pound bubble dependent on the uncontrolled free movement of 5/6 million Europeans and the failure to provide new homes for this demographic surge. Brexit posed a deadly threat to this status quo and their entitlement to 100k+ untaxed )cap gain per annum. They are Golums. This venal greedy immoral Elite just went mad in 2016. The Brex battle generated a full blown national breakdown and a near psychotic hysteria. These Elite Remainers HATE. They do not forgive. Hence the Civil Service is busy topping Brexiteers for ‘bullying’ & the job is near done. Journos and politicos lie about Russian gold. It wont stop. And their derangement – and the powerful groupthink and fear of ostracism that links them – has seen addled spun minds adopt all the other new credos that – like loving the EU – similarly mark them out to their peers and to the plebby Old Brex heretics as the Virtuous Ones. The Elect. Higher moral beings. This is why Remainia and Net Zero and the BLM and Pride all affix together in their scared but hyper aggressive minds. This is why the likes of that Dame have so rankly but knowingly failed us and almost all the UK’s institutions.
How could this happen?
Despite her somewhat ‘agricultural’ appearance, my spies tell me she is from a military family. She attended a good if not outstanding University,* where she read History, and is a Dame of the British Empire……..So what the hell went wrong?
ps.She is also married to another money lender
(*Durham.)
If she and the entire Board do not resign or are not sacked, expect yet more horrors. It is a test case. A Czech 38 moment.
Alison ROSE* has made a grovelling apology.
Should it be enough to save her? Or should she be ‘destroyed’?
(* CEO Nat West/Coutts).
Private tyranny, says it all.Could happen to anyone, anytime. Back to stuffing bank notes under the mattress, just in case?
Private tyranny, says it all.Could happen to anyone, anytime. Back to stuffing bank notes under the mattress, just in case?
Are not ESG and DEI stipulations by government bodies relevant here?
Perhaps the writer might have taken the trouble to raise them only to dismiss them?
It would seem to me that, untethered from regulation, some businesses might cut off their noses to spite their faces; not doing business with gay people, black people, Brexit voters…Surely, though most would be desperate for your custom.
I do not know the answer for sure to my question but I do think this ought to have been seen as possibility above.
Are not ESG and DEI stipulations by government bodies relevant here?
Perhaps the writer might have taken the trouble to raise them only to dismiss them?
It would seem to me that, untethered from regulation, some businesses might cut off their noses to spite their faces; not doing business with gay people, black people, Brexit voters…Surely, though most would be desperate for your custom.
I do not know the answer for sure to my question but I do think this ought to have been seen as possibility above.
As you will now know, Sohrab, step outside the tent, or never step inside it, and this is what life is like. When UKIP was in its pomp, then its supporters decided that First Past the Post was unfair, having always regarded it as an article of faith when they were members or supporters of the Conservative Party; I am agnostic, bordering on indifferent, about the electoral system, by the way. And now they want to be the insurgents who banked with Coutts, or for organisational purposes with almost any bank at all. Well, they can’t be. Welcome to our world. My world forever. And your world now.
That said, Nigel Farage should sue Coutts for having called him “xenophobic and racist”. But the wider lesson of his case is that woke capitalism is the only possible form of either, and it is just as urgent that Ken Loach should sue Rachel Reeves for having called him an anti-Semite. When, far too late, Jeremy Corbyn finally sued someone for having called him a terrorist sympathiser, then he won.
As you will now know, Sohrab, step outside the tent, or never step inside it, and this is what life is like. When UKIP was in its pomp, then its supporters decided that First Past the Post was unfair, having always regarded it as an article of faith when they were members or supporters of the Conservative Party; I am agnostic, bordering on indifferent, about the electoral system, by the way. And now they want to be the insurgents who banked with Coutts, or for organisational purposes with almost any bank at all. Well, they can’t be. Welcome to our world. My world forever. And your world now.
That said, Nigel Farage should sue Coutts for having called him “xenophobic and racist”. But the wider lesson of his case is that woke capitalism is the only possible form of either, and it is just as urgent that Ken Loach should sue Rachel Reeves for having called him an anti-Semite. When, far too late, Jeremy Corbyn finally sued someone for having called him a terrorist sympathiser, then he won.
what will happen first – Farage’s account being reinstated or Coutt’s having the threat of losing their banking license due to discrimination?
what will happen first – Farage’s account being reinstated or Coutt’s having the threat of losing their banking license due to discrimination?