The British government is reportedly set to announce measures that could see banks stripped of their license if they choose to debank customers due to their political views.
A July 20 report from The Times said the United Kingdom’s government is considering tighter conditions on banking permits that would seek to protect freedom of speech. A final decision is yet to be made, but the U.K. Treasury is expected to announce the new rules as soon as next week.
The new provisions would reportedly force banks to give customers three months’ notice before closing their accounts. Additionally, banks will be required to provide an explicit reason for closing down accounts and customers will be granted the right of appeal.
The move comes in the wake of a dispute between politically conservative former politician Nigel Frarage and the U.K. private bank Coutts — which boasts British royal family members as clients.
Coutts closed Farage’s bank accounts earlier this month, saying his account had fallen below its threshold but leaked documents later revealed it was because his conservative views did not “align with [their] values.”
The documents obtained by Farage and shared by the Daily Mail, detailed the minutes of a Coutts meeting concerning his accounts.
In the meeting, Coutts officials called Farage a “disingenuous grifter” and cited the “reputational risk” associated with his political views as the reasons for closing his accounts.
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said it was “wrong.” He added “no one should be barred from using basic services for their political views. Free speech is the cornerstone of our democracy.”
This is wrong.
No one should be barred from using basic services for their political views.
Alison Rose, the CEO of Coutts’ parent company NatWest Group, has since issued an apology for the “deeply inappropriate” comments made about Farage during the meeting and has agreed to re-open his account.
“It is absolutely not our policy to exit a customer on the basis of legally held political and personal views,” read the apology letter.
Farage, a former leader of the populist political parties Reform UK and the UK Independence Party (UKIP), is a vocal supporter of cryptocurrencies. On Dec. 3, 2020, Farage lauded Bitcoin (BTC) as the “ultimate anti-lockdown investment” and derided the British pound as government “funny money.”
Farage made an appearance at the Bitcoin Amsterdam Conference in 2022. In an interview with Cointelegraph, he praised Bitcoin for its anti-inflationary qualities and its immutability when compared to traditional banking infrastructure.
Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino explained that if the hacking group was telling the truth, they would have asked for a ransom, but he “couldn’t find any request.”
The symbolism of Labour taking the West Midlands mayor, a jewel in the Tory crown, could be felt in the room as Labour activists gathered in Birmingham to celebrate the win with their new mayor Richard Parker and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.
There are moments on election journeys when the momentum shifts – and this win felt like one of them.
“We humbly asked [the voters] to put their trust and confidence in a changed Labour Party and they did. And that is a significant piece of political history that we’ve made here today,” said Sir Keir at his victory rally.
“So the message out of these elections, the last now the last stop before we go into that general election, is that the country wants change.
“I hope the prime minister is listening and gives the opportunity to the country to vote as a whole in a general election as soon as possible.”
This win gave them the boost that was missing when they won the Blackpool South by-election on a massive 26-point swing, but then failed to pick up the hundreds of council seats they were chasing.
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This win, on just 1,508 votes or 0.25 per cent of the vote, was a body blow for a Conservative party that believed they could just about cling on. Ben Houchen, the Tees Valley mayor, is now the last Tory standing.
For Labour, then a moment to bookmark.
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Just as Boris Johnson’s Hartlepool by-election win in 2021 was a low point for Sir Keir – he told me this week that he considered resigning over the loss because he thought it showed he was the barrier to Labour’s recovery – this too will feel devastating not just for Andy Street but for the PM too.
Labour has beaten him in a street fight. He’s bloodied with Sir Keir now emboldened.
“This was the one result we really needed,” said one senior Labour figure. “It’s been our top focus for the past week and symbolically a very important win.”
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Analysis of local election and mayoral results
And Labour needed the boost, because, as Professor Michael Thrasher pointed out in his Sky News’ national vote share projection calculated from the local election results, Sir Keir was not picking up the sort of vote share that Tony Blair was winning in the run-up to the 1997 Labour landslide.
His latest calculation of a 35% vote share for Labour and 26% for the Tories, put Sir Keir winning a general election but short of a majority.
What the West Midlands mayoral win did for Sir Keir was to give him a clear narrative that he is coming for the Tories and will do what he needs to take them down.
It raises inevitable questions about what is next for Rishi Sunak. The prime minister had nowhere to go today, not one win to celebrate. The worst performance in council elections in 40 years, was already pretty much as bad as it gets before the loss of Andy Street. The former Conservative mayor was magnanimous towards the prime minister, saying the loss was his alone.
But colleagues will not be so generous. One former cabinet minister said this loss was “devastating”. “We’re done and there’s no appetite to move against him,” said the senior MP. Many Tories tell me they are now resigned to defeat and believe Mr Sunak and his team needed to own it, rather than the rest of the party.
The coming days might be bumpy, the mood will be stony. But Tories tell me not much will actually change for them.
For Sir Keir, he now needs to sell not the changed Labour Party, but his vision for changing the country. The West Mids mayor’s win was dazzling, but it could have so easily gone the other way. And as Mr Sunak fights to survive, Labour still has to fight hard to win.