Coutts’ treatment of Nigel Farage is disgraceful – too many firms have let woke extremism become their official creed
BRITAIN used to be a land that cherished freedom.
But now our essential liberties are under threat from the woke revolution that ruthlessly seeks to enforce its ideology on our civic life.
Instead of standing up to the left-wing zealots, too many leading firms and public institutions have allowed politically correct extremism to become their official creed.
The social justice radicals are now more likely to be found in boardrooms than bedsits.
The corporate virtue-signallers pose as the champions of tolerance, yet they constantly resort to bullying in their demands for submission to their dogma.
Mass indoctrination, doctrinal purity tests, witch-hunts and accusations of thought crimes are among their methods.
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That shocking reality has been on full display in the decision of Coutts bank to close the account of Nigel Farage on the grounds of his political views.
An exclusive bank that caters for the wealthy, Coutts has been caught acting like the arm of an authoritarian regime against a dissident.
‘No crueller weapon’
At first, when Farage made his claims that he was the target of a political vendetta, Coutts denied the charge, and instead apparently leaked information to the BBC which purported to show that he had been dropped by the bank because he did not meet the high financial thresholds to be a customer.
There was predictable, smug chortling among the metropolitan chattering classes at this apparent revelation, led by Jon Sopel, the former BBC correspondent and poster boy of progressive broadcasting.
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He tweeted: “You must be feeling a bit of a Charlie if you are Nigel Farage and you claim it’s all an establishment stitch-up your account was closed when it’s just that you’re not rich enough for Coutts.”
But it turned out that Farage was right. Coutts had resorted to deceit, hardly a reassuring step in a company meant to be built on trust.
As Farage discovered through his dogged research, the bank had compiled a 36-page political dossier about him that was used to justify his removal as a client.
The bank is part of the NatWest Group, and so egregious was their behaviour that last night, chief executive Dame Alison Rose offered up a humiliating apology, admitting the comments about him from Coutts were “deeply inappropriate”.
The bank’s report is an extraordinary document, the very existence of which illustrates the sinister extent of the woke takeover.
In some places it reads like something that would have been drawn up by the Stasi in East Germany before the Berlin Wall came down.
In other parts it resembles the wittering of a juvenile, hard-left conspiracy theorist reading politics at an obscure university.
Russia is mentioned 144 times, along with references to Donald Trump, tennis star Novak Djokovic and even comedian Ricky Gervais, whose “transphobic” routine attracts Coutts’ disapproval.
Amid such absurdities, it is clear that Coutts was determined to kick out Farage because, as the report states, his politics “do not align with the bank’s values”.
Such a comment would have been unthinkable less than a decade ago.
But today, due to the woke revolution, Coutts sees itself a political commissar with the right to monitor the opinions of its clients and take disciplinary action against any heretic who refuses to comply with the current orthodoxy.
A very British form of McCarthyism is now operating in our midst, far darker than the original climate of intimidation created by alcoholic anti-Communist senator Joe McCarthy in 1950s America.
The withdrawal of a bank account could not be a crueller weapon, because in our modern, hi-tech society it is impossible to function without access to such facilities.
Anyone subject to such a sanction has truly been branded an “enemy of the people”.
Yet Coutts’ approach is riddled with hypocrisies.
The bank boasts of its role as an “inclusive organisation”, yet excludes Farage.
It prattles about equality, yet indulges in a blatant act of political discrimination, which is meant to be banned under Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights and other laws, including the 2010 Equality Act.
Its dossier accuses him of being “out of touch with wider society”, yet Brexit won 52 per cent in the 2016 referendum.
No one ever voted for the woke revolution.
Farage is out, but the bank still has on its books mobsters, organised gangsters and overseas despots.
And it is telling to contrast the hounding of Farage with the softly-softly approach of the establishment to the Just Stop Oil protesters, even though the bank admits that Farage was unfailingly polite and courteous with staff.
Unlike the rude, selfish and disruptive eco troublemakers.
But their views, of course, are acceptable, unlike Farage’s.
Coutts is a classic example of how the woke lunacy now prevails in the top ranks of the private and public sectors.
‘Strengthening the law’
Chief executive since 2019, Alison Rose has been described as a “passionate supporter of diversity”, so it’s not surprising that NatWest has become a bastion of the fashionable orthodoxy.
Like a town hall from the loony left in the 1980s, the bank now constantly indulges in gesture politics, like decking out its London headquarters in the rainbow colours of Pride and introducing a staff code that allows employees to be men or women on different days.
But some good may come from this depressing tale.
The scale of the totalitarian domination has finally been exposed and, thanks to Farage’s courage, numerous other cases of politicised and arbitrary bank account closures have come to light.
Farage has attracted support from all sides of the political spectrum.
Even Jon Sopel has been forced to apologise.
But warm words are not enough.
So the Government is right to consider strengthening the law on free speech, as well as undertaking a review of banks’ treatment of clients
Those institutions which indulge in totalitarian behaviour should lose their licences.
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This is Britain, the nation that created Magna Carta, pioneered Parliamentary democracy and defeated Nazi tyranny.
As it trumpets its “values”, Coutts betrays our traditions.