First Direct and Natwest closing bank accounts for political reasons inc being gender critical

[Snorkers]

Apprently First Direct have closed the account of the Wings over Scotland founder for his beliefs (He's Gender Critical), and Coutts, owned by Natwest, closed Nigel Farage's account.
Whatever you think of Nigel Farage he is entitled to a bank account.

This is really worrying.

I bank with First Direct. I am gender critical. Do I need to hide my beliefs to keep my bank account? Will tey stop me getting access to my money?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12249755/Nigel-Farage-claims-three-loved-ones-bank-accounts-closed-Brexit.html

Cousins and friend's bank accounts closed too, I assume this is PEP rather gender critical vicars?

And if occasionally these banks have to pay astronomical fines for money laundering, they don't care. By the time they get found out, they've made so much profits the fine is just a "small cost" for doing business.
Giving banskers any "benefit of the doubt" is in 99% of cases being extremely naive.

You might want to reassure yourself with that thought but I bet you're wrong. The commnets of the vicar whose account was closed by Yorkshire Building Society seem to be reasonably expressed and mainstream. But even if they weren't unless the person is using funds for illegal purposes this is a horrensous attack on civil liberties.

The Telegraph is reporting that the chancellor is going to warm banks of doing this but they weill ignore him like the police have ignored Braverman on non-crime hate incidents. It needs to in a formal regulation that custoemr can acuse their bank of breaing and get support from the ombudsman. There then needs to be financial penalities for banks persisting in behaving in a discriminatory way in the name of left wing 'prgressive' values.

Many of the banks are so captured. Wings Over Scotland pointed out that Hannah Graf is in a significant decision making position with the bank that has closed his accounts https://twitter.com/WingsScotland/status/1675185927998566401 No idea of coursewhether Graf or Gtaf's office was direclty involved - but certainly suggests a strong Stonewall/Mermaids influence at the top of HBSC.

I also suggest you read this about banks being ridiculous about applying the politically exposed persons rule - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-12256943/Its-not-just-Nigel-Farage-daughter-blocked-opening-bank-account.html it would seem that they are using it to punish conservatives almost exclusively. If applied even handly we'd see the same number of left wingers having problems with banking and we're not.

I wonder how this will all end?

Will everyone reluctantly chant TWAW?

You had the very tiny minority who saw this coming in 2004, then a small minority like myself in 2015. Most people scoffed and dismissed concerns or placed their head in the sand sitting in the Winchester waiting for it all to blow over. The Winchester has had windows smashed in, bullets and darts are flying whilst drag Queen's sing 'don't stop me now'.

As Rosie Diffield said it's half funny, half scary.

(All right, but dogs can look up...)

Yes, if I had the time, I'd trawl back to this Board (or its previous incarnation) in 2014-15, and look up all the things that we were told we were mad to be worried about - from TW sharing cells with women to TW allowed to compete in the Olympics as women. How stupid, hysterical and paranoid we were, according to many, many posters.

I can't think of a single prediction that hasn't happened.

Well, if we can't contribute to crowdfunds without being flagged at our banks and having our ability to feed our DC threatened, that will stop many people from enforcing their legal rights under the Equality Act and cases like Maya's and many others wouldn't be possible.

So yes, we could well all end up chanting TWAW if this banking issue isn't nipped in the bud.

Giving any company the power to police people is never going to
end well.

I spend my time trying to walk people through how to do their jobs. I can’t get a job doing their job because I don’t have the qualifications but I probably know how to do their job better than they know.

And then these people who can’t actually do the job they are paid to do are given the power to police something that they probably don’t understand what is and isn’t legal.

These people must be using coercive controlling at home to see it as normal.

When you're in the gender identity ideology bubble at work, though, it does seem completely normal.

I know it sounds batshit that anyone would view it as normal but believe me, inside those organisations it absolutely is normal and encouraged. I used to do it myself before I realised how different advancement of trans rights actually is from advancement of gay rights.

The organisations who tweet all sorts of weird diversity nonsense and then have to delete it again didn't tweet it thinking "I know, let's create some controversy", they think they're tweeting something completely mainstream and universally accepted until they see the inevitable backlash from people outside of the bubble.

It's very easy when you and your employer have been thoroughly brainwashed by Stonewall to dismiss any dissenting views as total bigotry as according to Stonewall, all sorts of widely-held mainstream views are transphobic. It completely skews your world view but, just like a coercive relationship, it's often really hard to recognise it while you're still in it.

Good piece by the consumer rights journalist Katie Morley in the Telegraph
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/current-accounts/arrogant-banks-woke-keep-money-safe/

She points out all the ways banks are immoral and lacking in stnadards - the failure to pass on interest rates to savers, the failure to help customers who have been scammed, etc, etc.

"So yes, when it comes to morals there truly may be no-one worse to judge than the banks. They can hand out as many pronoun badges, hold as many Pride events and cancel as many Nigel Farage-types as they like, but at the end of the day customers will see it all for what it really is: virtue signalling designed to further their own money-making agenda.

The bottom line is that no-one should be denied a bank account on the basis of their views. Government intervention to stop this faux moral grandstanding cannot come soon enough. "

It took about eight years of dancing around with threats to universities that they can't no platform.

We have girls taking the day off school on the heavy flow days did to mixed sex toilets, sick women avoiding the NHS did to Annexe B whilst the NHS is promoting male chest liquid for newborns.

Maybe the banks haven't cancelled enough Tory MPs yet for them to care.

This!!! I would be interested to see how banks cope if all their gender critical customers emailed to let them know they are gender critical (I would need to write to approx 20 institutions) - I would certainly be willing to do this as part of an organised campaign (much like some of the groups put together a standard email to end to the local MP) - a bit of an "I am Spartacus" moment...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mqQ8Y9Sjp7o&pp=ygURU2VhbiBvZiB0aGUgZGVhZCA%3D

Like this?

It is the main Telegraph opinion piece at the moment

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2023/07/02/a-new-frontier-in-the-fight-for-free-speech/

Tweet from Wings over Scotland

I've now managed to establish that neither my own name nor Wings' are listed on Refinitiv's World Check screening platform which identifies "PEPs" (Politically Exposed Persons) for banks and others. So my accounts weren't closed for any financial reasons. refinitiv.com/en/products/wo…

https://twitter.com/WingsScotland/status/1675906220572459008?t=qEynlzM2Q0b6-KZppdTKzA&s=19

This is a bloody disgrace.

The organisations who tweet all sorts of weird diversity nonsense and then have to delete it again didn't tweet it thinking "I know, let's create some controversy", they thinkthey're tweeting something completely mainstream and universally accepted until they see the inevitable backlash from people outside of the bubble.

Which, ironically, demonstrates that they've got a massive diversity problem...

When Halifax brought in the pronouns badges, I followed various tweets and discovered that Lloyds own Halifax and that their biggest shareholder were one of the companies you named, I think it was about 9%.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-12260461/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-bank-accounts-closed-not-holding-right-views.html

An opinion piece here.

The advice is buy a farm, a safe and arm yourself.

Richard Littlejohn… the voice of calm and sense

BBC journalist just tweeted the following:

Simon Jack AT BBCSimonJack
Nigel Farage fell below the financial threshold required to hold an account at Coutts, the prestigious private bank for wealthy customers the BBC has been told. It also understood that he was offered a normal account at Natwest which owns Coutts. People familiar....

2/...with the matter rejected the notion that the decision to close his Coutts account was in any way political. "it was for commercial reasons - the criteria for holding a Coutts account are clear from the bank's website". Coutts requires customers to borrow or invest...

3/ £1 million with the bank or hold £3million in savings. Mr Farage recently posted a 6 minute video on Twitter saying that losing his bank account was the equivalent of being a "non person" and that the decision may "fundamentally affect my future career and whether...

4/...I can even go on staying living here in this country". Mr Farage disputed the fact that he was offered a Natwest account at the time his Coutts accounts were withdrawn. He says offer of a Natwest account came late last week. The offer of a Natwest account still stands...

5/..the BBC understands. Mr Farage says that he has tried to open an account with a number of other banks but claims he was rejected on the grounds that he is a "Politically Exposed Person" (PEP). A PEP generally presents a higher risk for financial institutions as regulators...

6/ consider PEPs more exposed to the risk for potential involvement in bribery and corruption by virtue of their position and the influence they may hold. People familiar with Natwest's thinking insisted that this not the reason for the closure of his Coutts account....

7/Mr Farage told teh BBC - "are you telling me that all the other banks say it was a PEP thing and Coutts wasn't - draw your own conclusions." Mr Farage also said that his business account for "Thorn in the Side Limited" was closed despite the fact....

8/...that last year he had what he described as "large significant positive cash balances" going through his business account. Coutts do not offer business banking services to customers who are not also private customers.

So now we get to pick whether we think that the Bank is lying and Farage lost his account because of his dodgy associates and possible laundering or we believe the bank and accept that Farage is too poor for Coutts.

I'm left amused at both scenarios and wonder which would actually piss off Farage more!

Even if Farage’s accounts were closed because he didn’t meet the account criteria any longer, how does the BBC explain the others that have been in the news recently?

Nigel Farage fell below the financial threshold required to hold an account at Coutts, the prestigious private bank for wealthy customers the BBC has been told. It also understood that he was offered a normal account at Natwest which owns Coutts. People familiar....

Who exactly is saying this, it's confidential info. NF said he was given no reason for the closing. If this was the reason why was he not informed directly.

This subject isn't just about NF. The BBC should name their source.

Just seen this from Our Duty on twitter

https://twitter.com/OurDutyGrp/status/1676183710620590083?t=7Bp2bI5UAaFWsyOKbURAbA&s=19

This morning we received a phone call from our bankers declining to open a Business account for Our Duty International Limited (ODIL). ODIL is the organisation which publishes our website and provides services and infrastructure to separate Our Duty branches in UK and Overseas. Our Duty also has a Community Account in UK, and I was informed that this, too, was under review. During the course of the telephone conversation, the bank employee told me:
"The content of your website conflicts with the culture and ideas we are pushing" and
"the bank has staff networks for diversity and inclusion including for LGBTQ staff" and
"at the weekend I went on a march for Pride".
The bank was making it patently clear that they consider only one worldview to be valid. If it were truly a champion of diversity and inclusion, it would accept our diverse views and be keen to include us.
We are now seeking a UK bank to support our critically important work providing help and advice to parents with a child who thinks of themselves as transgender.
Is there one?
It seems that Our Duty is the latest casualty in the LGBTQ+ staff networks' war on differing views.
telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/0…