Political censorship on the Right is by no means a new phenomenon in the West. From social media account bans to outright police investigations for “hate speech”, many on the Right have encountered some form of corporate or institutional pushback for their beliefs.
Bank accounts, which were once rarely interfered with for political reasons, have become a target in recent years—and now UK politician and Brexit leader Nigel Farage has claimed that the banks have begun targeting him.
In a video posted to social media, Mr. Farage, who hosts a programme on broadcaster GB News, stated that he had been with the same banking groups since 1980 but stated the bank told him over the phone that his accounts were being closed.
“I asked why? No reason was given. I was told a letter would come that would explain everything. The letter came through and simply said ‘We are closing your accounts’.” and added the bank gave a date, “which is around about now.”
After being told it was a “commercial decision” Farage states that he tried to find another bank but was rejected by at least seven different banks for business and personal accounts.
Farage speculated that the reason for the rejections may be linked to a European Union term known as a Politically Exposed Person (PEP), which became part of British law while the country was still a member of the bloc.
The legislation around PEP is designed to apply additional regulations to financial institutions to regulate those in positions of political power in order to prevent abuse, such as bribery, corruption, or laundering of illicit funds.
If that is the case, it remains unclear why the bank would act on PEP legislation as Farage’s last elected office as a member of the European Parliament ended in 2020 when Britain finally left the EU, around three and a half years after the June 2016 Brexit vote.
Farage also proposed that the corporate world in the UK may never forgive him for leading the Brexit movement and getting the UK out of the EU and surmised that may be the real reason for his banking challenges.
A third theory was also entertained by Farage, involving accusations made by Labour’s Sir Chris Bryant, who spoke under parliamentary privilege, allowing him to, without consequence (such as a defamation lawsuit), accuse Farage of receiving money from the Russian government.
“I simply point out that Nigel Farage received from Russia Today £548,573 in 2018 alone—from the Russian state,” Bryant said.
According to Farage, he has hired lawyers to examine the case and added, “But think about it. Without a bank account, you’ve effectively become a non-person. You don’t actually exist. It’s like the worst regimes of the mid-20th century, be they in Russia or Germany, you literally become a non-person.”
“I’m beginning to think that perhaps life in the United Kingdom is now becoming completely unlivable because of the levels of prejudice against me,” he said.
Farage is not the first figure in the UK to have his bank account shut down, known as de-banking or financial de-platforming, in recent months.
Earlier this year in May, the successful UK podcast “Triggernometry” had its bank account cancelled by Tide Bank and claimed that, as with Mr. Farage, the bank initially gave no information on why the account was cancelled.
Other European countries have also seen banks engage in similar behaviour toward politicians such as former French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, who had her personal bank account closed by HSBC in 2017. This came after France’s Société Générale closed all the accounts linked to her party—the Front National, later renamed the Rassemblement National (RN).
