Co-op bank refuses services to feminist group

[chaoticgood]

twitter.com/SaveOurBank/status/1006920527292846080

www.co-operativebank.co.uk/assets/pdf/bank/news/values-and-ethics-report-2017.pdf

I would love to know what human right they are referring to.

They might need a UK bank if they take U.K. donations or if they are looking to register as a U.K. charity. It would be required by the Charity Commission that they have a U.K. bank account.

Someone should email the Co-Op Foundation and complain, even if they are independent of the Bank. There will also be a Corporate Responsibility Team and/or a Diversity Team (probably situated inside the HR umbrella.

I can post the relevant email addresses if anyone can take this one?

Also willing to close my personal Co op account pending more info.
It’s a secondary account that I only use for a couple of bits and pieces anyway, but I was happy to keep it until now. I’ve had it for at least 12 years or so.

I used to consider the Co-Op a good thing. "Ethical retailer" and all that. I got my wake-up when I learned they were one of the backers of Tony Blair's election
Ummm, don’t the Co-Operative Party (once connected to the bank but less so now) have a very long-standing relationship with Labour? So of course they’d have been involved with Blair’s election. I’m not sure how they could have predicted Iraq tbh!

Co-Op Bank have given a brief and uninformative response here:

twitter.com/CoopBankUK_help/status/1007259353244676096

I've replied that whilst they may not be able to provide the name of the group, they can explain their ethical policy in more detail and have asked them to clarify whether what we suspect is the case would be a breach of it.

"Ummm, don’t the Co-Operative Party (once connected to the bank but less so now) have a very long-standing relationship with Labour? So of course they’d have been involved with Blair’s election"

They do. I did not know that at the time, hence my sudden and unpleasant realisation. I do not like banks sponsoring politicians.

It's not about Posie Parker. It was in 2017

twitter.com/SaveOurBank/status/1006920527292846080

The only person I can see on Twitter saying it is Hands Across The Aisle is a transactivist so I'd wait for confirmation from the Co-op on that. If so, it would be strange to describe them as a feminist group as from their website it looks like they are a very broad coalition from radical feminists to conservative Christians and saying that they had denied service to 'US religious conservatives' would probably have got them more brownie points with the general public than saying they refused service to feminists.

saying that they had denied service to 'US religious conservatives' would probably have got them more brownie points with the general public than saying they refused service to feminists

I'm not sure it would these days

"The only person I can see on Twitter saying it is Hands Across The Aisle is a transactivist so I'd wait for confirmation from the Co-op on that"

Hands Across the Aisle is American and essentially an offshoot of the Heritage Foundation, a Republican thinktank.

They would not in a thousand billion years have a Co op Bank account.

Absolute bollocks and utter lies.

So having rummaged further, The normal banking rules will apply to the feminist group as they will probably be small enough. The Coop will have a regulatory duty to treat such customers fairly.

The FCA (and the Financial Ombudsman service (FOS) are also very keen to ensure that customers are not discriminated against (in the Equalities act sense), and also that customers are not excluded from accessing financial services (in a looser sense).

It is possible for a group/organisation have a claim for discrimination under the EA in certain circumstances (radfemlawyer on twitter)

Before court(!) they could and IMHO should complain to the bank that they are being excluded from access to banking services based on their being women (for e.g. I assume that no mainly male groups are being refused services on the basis of their political views) and also their philosophical beliefs, and that this may be discriminatory under the Equalities Act. They should absolutely ask for justification of the bank's decision.

Then if rebuffed by the company, Ombudsman complaint along with Daily Mail sadface

I am not a banking compliance bod though - so all of the above might be a bit wrong.

Also they aren't feminist, explicitly not, they are a coalition of right-wing Christians and feminists.

The most worrisome thing here is the attitude of the bank - imagine:

We declined banking services due to
Human rights and equality
In the first instance, a tenants' rights group that actively denied the rights of....
A play therapy group, who advocated for....
A trees and green spaces campaign group, who....

You'd think "what the actual fuck is a tree campaign group doing to get banking services declined?" and "er why are the Coop proud of this?"

But because feminists can be much more easily thought of as bad, by the Coop, they expect nobody to say "that's fucking bizarre" or "OMG does this mean I, as a pro-feminist person, will also break whatever rule and get my bank account closed?" and "Probably won't shout so much on twitter about me feminist rants"

Very worrisome indeed.

I do not like banks sponsoring politicians.

This is a bit off-topic, granted, but the link between Labour and the Co-Operative movement is slightly more than simply a bank sponsoring politicians. Whatever we think of the bank nowadays (and it’s pretty much divorced from the Co-Op party), the wider Co-Op movement is a very important and worthwhile part of this country’s history and heritage, particularly when it has come to improving the lives of working class people.

From the 2017 Co-op document

In the first instance, banking facilities for a feminist group that actively denied the rights of members of the transgender community.

Sorry, I must have missed the part whereby feminist groups were in power to deny rights (to anybody). The only thing feminists have power over, are their boundaries. Or perhaps a belief in biology. Should the Co-op start denying services to biology teachers as well? While there are some critters that can change sex, humans are not one of these species.

The Bank is supportive of women’s rights and the freedom of thought and belief.
Not really, quite the opposite. But perhaps they meant to say the bank is not in support of women's boundaries to exclude males?

[...] the activities were considered to be in breach of our position on human rights, equality, and our diversity and inclusion policies.
So there it is, the 'inclusion' part. A group of women were denied banking service on the basis that they did not want to include males in their definition of woman or female spaces presumably. Their policy reads to me that they do not believe women have the right to boundaries, or indeed, self definition.

I would hazard a guess this would not stand up to any (legal) test about treating customers fairly. Co-Op probably have a decimated compliance function (happens when banks make no money) and have probably dropped the ball on this one.

Hands Across the Aisle is a broad-based group of women coming together out of concern of the erosion of women's rights, women-only spaces, and women's boundaries generally. The group encompasses feminists, conservative women, religious women, etc. And the group's purpose is to 'reach across the aisle' and find common ground with each other with regard to what is seen as a threat to women's rights.

The group is probably US-heavy, but includes women from all over the world. It is not "an offshoot of the Heritage Foundation, a Republican thinktank".

But, to a degree, like FWR here at MN, women who were not previously exposed to, or had interest in, feminism generally, have woken up to what is going on with women's rights, and they are rightfully worried, and now have more interest in feminism.

I have always stated that feminism is neither 'left nor right', because they are descriptors of men's politics, and men from the left, and men from the right, almost all participate in male supremacy and all of them benefit from it. Feminism stands outside of men's politics - it has to.

I bloody hope those compliance functions are tested and found wanting. What scares me is the way these sweeping PR actions are committed then adhered to ignoring any regulations or pesky laws that get in the way. Such is the society we live in. Revolting.

Coop, really. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

Home and car insurance coming up. I pay it. Boycott.

twitter thread

Remember when the transgender advocates changed the wording in the Equality Act 2010 deleting sex as a protected characteristic and adding gender?
The bank is depending on their newly discovered right to discriminate against women because we are no longer protected according to the Fraudulent guidelines being published by various councils and businesses.
They are in violation of the law by using one protected class as an excuse to discriminate against another protected class.

If you have read Crenshaw's work on Intersectionality this will seem very familiar to you. This is the business trickery she was writing about.

They would soooo love to change that wording. And they try to pretend it isn't being targeted. Like REALLY ? Who are you kidding

Even NHS England has sneakily removed 'sex' and replaced it with 'gender'

mobile.twitter.com/HairyLeggdHarpy/status/1004842448458256385

I have protested. As have others.

It seems to be SOP to violate the Equality Act by discriminating against women in the name of equality.
I would like to think it is unintentional but really, it takes less than a minute to find out what section 4 of the the EA actually says and surely they must have the capacity to use the google.

I'm making a formal complaint to the Coop and requesting more info. I will close my personal, business & mortgage accounts if I do not get a sensible reply. Looks to me as if a juvenile delinquent has felt empowered and done something really stupid..........