‘Democracy gone wrong’: Gina Miller criticises Monzo for closing bank account

Published

9 months ago

July 28, 2023

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Businesswoman and aspiring MP Gina Miller has said Monzo Bank’s decision to close one of her accounts is a case of “democracy gone wrong”.

Ms Miller, the legal activist who challenged the government’s handling of Brexit, told Sky News that Monzo Bank had written to her on 13 July to explain that her account for her True and Fair Party would be closed in September without providing an explanation.

However, the bank later confirmed it did not allow political party accounts and the initial decision to open it had been made in error.

Ms Miller, who is standing for the True and Fair Party in the next general election, said she had tried to set up an account with “almost every other bank in the UK” before approaching Monzo, but they all turned down her application.

She warned “we don’t have a functioning democracy” if new political parties cannot access banking services as she urged the government and financial services watchdog to step in.

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Concerns about “de-banking” have mounted after former Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage complained that his account with private bank Coutts had been closed owing to his political views.

The story first came to light when the BBC inaccurately reported the account was shut because he did not meet Coutts’s financial thresholds – for which the reporter in question later apologised.

A 40-page document obtained by Mr Farage through a subject access request subsequently revealed his political beliefs and connections formed part of its decision to close his account, sparking a debate about freedom of speech among politicians.

The fallout saw Dame Alison Rose, the chief executive of NatWest, which owns Coutts, resign early on Wednesday morning after she admitted she had been the source of the BBC story about Mr Farage’s account.

She was followed by Coutts chief executive Peter Flavel, who resigned on Thursday, while pressure is also mounting on NatWest chairman Sir Howard Davies – who initially backed Dame Alison’s position before an apparent change of heart.

Mr Farage described the row as “serious political persecution at the very highest level of our system”.

Ms Miller told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge she had some sympathy with Mr Farage, but that her case was a “bigger issue” because “as a new insurgent political party you have no access to banking services, which is extraordinary in a democracy”.

“The three main political parties – the status quo system supports them, but not new entrants,” she said.

She said she believed banks have “overstepped the mark when it comes to politically exposed persons” – someone who holds or has held public office and therefore may be more susceptible to bribery or corruption.

“Nigel’s case is about an individual, but this is actually about how our democracy runs,” she said.

“You cannot have a bank account as a political party – it doesn’t make any sense and this is democracy gone wrong.”

Sky News understands that political views and affiliations did not factor into the decision to close Ms Miller’s True and Fair Party account and that the only issue was the type of account that was requested.

A Monzo spokesperson told Sky News: “Like lots of banks, we do not accept any political parties as Monzo Business customers in the same way that we don’t currently accept trusts, clubs and a range of other organisations.

“In this case, the account wasn’t originally categorised as a political party. After this was identified and corrected, the customer was given notice that the account would be closed. We recognise that this experience will have been frustrating for the customer and we’re sorry for that.”

Ms Miller said that as well as being denied accounts by various high street banks, she had also been denied access to other financial services products such as professional indemnity insurance.

“The whole system is broken,” she said.

Ms Miller said she had managed to open an account with a smaller bank but added: “My worry is that there’s no guarantee they won’t turn around and do the same thing.”

Last week, the Treasury announced reforms designed to offer customers greater protections, including more time to challenge decisions or to find replacement banks.

New measures include forcing banks to explain why they are shutting an account and extending the notice period from 30 days to 90 days.

While the reforms have yet to be enacted legally, they appear to have been accelerated in response to Mr Farage’s experience, which sparked outrage among senior Tory MPs.

Politics

UK considered using Iraq to process asylum seekers in Rwanda-type deal, leaked documents show

Published

6 hours ago

May 6, 2024

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UK considered using Iraq to process asylum seekers in Rwanda-type deal, leaked documents show

The government at one point considered using Iraq to process asylum seekers – like the Rwanda scheme – according to documents seen by Sky News.

This could have seen people sent from the UK to a country the government advises against all travel to.

The two countries already have a returns agreement – but only for people that are from Iraq.

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According to leaked correspondence between high-ranking officials, the Iraqi returns commitments were made with a “request for discretion” and no publicity.

The country was willing to move forward but did not want a formal or public agreement.

The current travel advice to Iraq on the Foreign Office website simply advises against “all travel to parts of Iraq”. However, according to the document, negotiations were fairly advanced and described in one table as “good recent progress with Iraq”.

Other government aims included enhancing cooperation with the Iranian Embassy in order to enhance returns arrangements for migrants and potential asylum seekers.

Returns agreements are also in the works for Eritrea and Ethiopia, according to documents about work undertaken by the Home Office and Foreign Office that relates to countries with the highest number of nationals arriving to the UK by small boats.

In a tranche of internal government documents seen by Sky News, even from the earliest stage of the Rwanda policy, Downing Street advisers knew there were serious problems with their proposals.

There are even private admissions that many people arriving here on small boats did so without the assistance of criminal gangs – despite their communications strategy.

Comparisons were also made to Australia’s response – to what Downing Street officials understood to be a comparable “smaller problem” than in the UK and admitted it had cost billions of Australian dollars in order for their returns processes to be fully operational.

In one document submitted to the Home Office, some of the highest-ranking officials at the time wrote that their guidance was to be “prepared to pay over the odds” to get the policy up and running. And that the initial offer from Rwanda was a “modest sum”.

Whitehall’s official spending watchdog has priced the cost of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda at £1.8m per person for the first 300 people the government deports to Kigali.

It also disclosed that since April 2022 the Home Office has paid £220m into Rwanda’s economic transformation and integration fund, which is designed to support economic growth in Rwanda, and will continue to make payments to cover asylum processing and operational costs for individuals relocated to Rwanda.

It will also pay further amounts of £50m over the next year and an additional £50m the following year.

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A government source said: “The Home Office is spending millions every day accommodating migrants in hotels – that’s not right or fair. We’re taking action to put an end to this costly and dangerous cycle. Doing nothing is not a free option – we must act if we want to stop the boats and save lives.

“The UK is continuing to work with a range of international partners to tackle global illegal migration challenges. Our Rwanda partnership is a pioneering response to the global challenge of illegal migration, and we will get flights off the ground to Rwanda in the next nine to eleven weeks.”

Politics

Bitfinex database breach ‘seems fake,’ says CTO

Published

1 day ago

May 5, 2024

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<div>Bitfinex database breach 'seems fake,' says CTO</div>

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.”

Politics

Labour taking ‘Tory crown jewel’ feels like a momentum shift

Published

1 day ago

May 5, 2024

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Labour taking 'Tory crown jewel' feels like a momentum shift

It was a wafer-thin victory, but a huge win.

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.

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.

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.”

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.