Yorkshire Building Society closing accounts down on people with views that don't agree with their policy

[Summer2023hasarrived]

So the story goes that if you have a view on Brexit or LGBTQ?+ that isn't inline or in agreement with the people that know what view is right at The Yorkshire Building Society then they can close your account?

AIBU - stick to the day job and provide mortgages and savings

YABU - they can decide if the values of their customers don't align to shut them down

If I ran a bank I'd close Nigel Farage's account purely because he is a wanker. And I'd charge a thumping great fee for doing it.

Exactly, so they hold views you personally find abhorrent so they deserve everything they get. Fine, but what about when it is a view you hold? Easy to assume that wouldn’t happen, but it isn’t. Once you have decided banks (of all fucking places!) are moral guardians it’s not easy to turn back from that view.

@chupachucks I was referring specifically to Farage and Tice, not Young. And in those cases, the law is as it stands.

I can well imagine Toby Young being utterly foul to someone in branch, and every bank branch I have been in has a zero tolerance of abuse towards staff displayed. I suspect the issue isn't the GC or other views, it's the tone and manner in which they have been expressed, though if you read beyond GBeebies and the Mail, Toby Young's issue has been around spreading anti-vax disinformation.

Ultimately, banks are businesses and businesses can choose who they want as customers, as long as they do not discriminate on a protected characteristic. Being a bellend is not on the list.

I mean, there are people who have committed terrible offences who have been released from prison. Are we going to deny them bank accounts as well? Sex offenders, murderers, rapists?

Of course.

If banks offer a service and they don't want Farage as a customer they're perfectly within their rights not to offer their service to him.

i think farage is a cunt.

but he should still be able to bank.

fucking thought police

I’m guessing more dog-whistle ranting by the far right, in an attempt to show themselves as the “abused minority”. More “poor old white men” and “it’s Illegal to say your English anymore” nonsense.

The Far Right media can publish what they like, in the full knowledge that the Bank (which you can replace with council, heath service, Civil Service department.. depending on who they are having a pop at this week) is unable to fully respond due to Data Protection issues.

They are much more likely to close accounts due to dodgy financial transactions, or abuse if staff … however … the “poor me” in this will never admit to that, they prefer to turn it into “the snowflakes hated my British Values”

I find it a scary precedent to set, I agree with being banned from branches and whatever else for direct abuse of staff, but it's wild.

Thank you OP

The problem is that if all banks get on board with this - and bear in mind that these things often do have a bit of a domino effect - where does that leave people?

I can think of several utter scum of the earth characters who are released by the prison service for horrendous crimes. But if you deny people bank accounts, how does that work in a society that is increasingly cashless? I genuinely don’t know.

Dog Whistle ranting from the far right you say. 🙄

Funny it affects the left too.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/feb/03/natwest-closed-my-account-with-no-explanation

Banks are businesses, they can choose not to do business with anyone for any reason. They are not the government.

He has said himself that he received payments from Russia Today?

Really?

Taking away someone's banking facility is a VERY serious matter. It's not comparable to (say) a landlord refusing to sell someone beer or a hairdresser turning away a customer.

And can people not see that this is a terrifyingly slippery slope?

Businesses can choose who they deal business with. I don’t see the issue.

That’s what I think as well @MathiasBroucek

I wonder if there has been abuse or unnecessary rudeness to staff. Anyone who has worked for Russia Today I'd understand a bank not wishing to have as a customer.

Though it does seem selective. Do they close the accounts of those convicted of harming children, for example?

So are water companies. Are we saying that people with the "wrong sort of views" should be prevented from bathing?

A gap in business in a future maybe?
The rejects bank?

I didn't say I thought it was right, but this is how life works under capitalism.

Actually communism too. Wrong views-family fucked.

How is this relevant?

I really think it's unlikely to be because of their views.

I had the same happen to me years ago with RBS, sudden closure of the accounts that I had with them for years, one as a child, and no option to do the usual easy direct debit transfers.

I had stupidly agreed to set up a community current account jointly with someone else from a group we were both in to handle transactions for the group there, and unbeknownst to me they seemed to have had some suspicious dealings in China in their other bank accounts (which had no bearings whatsoever on the society account we had opened up. So that was enough to have all of mine closed down, no questions answered.

These accounts are likely to have some direct or indirect link with money or another account that the bank has concerns about, and that is enough for the bank to start this process and then not answer any questions you have whatsoever, instead just telling you it is a commercial decision. I tried to go through the financial ombudsman at the time, I think I was awarded a small amount of compensation for the hassle, but no reversal or explanation of the decision.

Where?

No they really can't decide not to do business with anyone for any reason anymore. That's why you don't see signs saying "No Dogs. No Blacks. No Irish." these days.

Discrimination against political views is illegal in precisely the same way as discrimination against sexuality, race, religion or disability.