Could you be 'de-banked' for being gender-critical?

[heckmuffin]

I'm sure Nigel Farage has very few fans here. However, in the light of his bank, Coutts, closing his bank accounts due to his political beliefs, could this happen to gender-critical women too?

Farage has obtained documents from Coutts which make it clear that the bank gave him the boot because his views didn't align with their 'inclusive' purpose.

I wonder if GC women such as Posie Parker have had similar issues? Or if this is something that could happen? Believing in humans being a sexually dimorphic species is, as we all know, 'not inclusive'.

More info from Telegraph https://archive.ph/vE5Ua:

Nigel Farage’s bank accounts were closed down after Coutts decided his views “do not align with our values”, documents obtained by the former Ukip leader show.

A reputational risk committee “exited” him after considering a dossier detailing Mr Farage’s comments about Brexit, his friendship with Donald Trump and his views on LGBT rights among many reasons he was not “compatible with Coutts”.

There was a recent thread about this, but I couldn't find it on a quick skim. Maybe NatWest closing a GC holders account.

My view is that as long as the money has not come from ill gotten gains then a bank should not be commenting on the morality of account holders.

Found it on my 2nd look.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4838848-first-direct-and-natwest-closing-bank-accounts-for-political-reasons-inc-being-gender-critical

It's shocking and yes we should all be worried. A bank account is not a luxury. Banks closing accounts because they don't like your politics is scary for all of us.

Mr Farage’s comments about Brexit, his friendship with Donald Trumpi.e. a political decision supported by 52% of the UK electorate, and the former President elected by (almost) half the US electorate. I'm a Remainer who hates Trump, but this is profoundly undemocratic. Politicians need to rein it in, pronto.

Can't stand the dude but can't stand the recent trend for companies to virtue signal and find it terrifying banks are now jumping in to police people's thoughts- whatever the view is. If others follow it will be impossible for people to hold any views openly other than what they are told they must think or else. Some people's entire careers are based around sharing their opinions and I might not agree with them but think they have every right to earn their living how they choose... slippery slope to hell and I kinda hope Coutts customers who can afford the hassle of it might go elsewhere in a boycott to stop others from following suit

Second Telegraph article goes into even more detail:

https://archive.ph/mDKmk

Under the heading: “Alignment to purpose,” the document states: “There are several factors and behaviours demonstrated by NF which arguably do not align with values that serve the common good and that treat people with dignity and respect.

“When viewed from our perspective, however, we are considering him as an individual and to some extent that does include expecting not all views to be the same as ours.

“However, when considering our stance specifically on ESG/diversity the comments/articles are not in line with our views or our purpose.”

There is is...

Whether you agree with his views or not, they are legitimate and lawful.
You couldn't function in modern society without a bank account. Allowing a bank to effectively cut you off because they don't like your views, especially in the context of this current woke rabbit hole society is going down, is quite frankly frightening.

As ever, 'diversity' actually means conformity.

I can't wait for "woke" culture to implode on itself - I don't believe it's a sustainable model for society long term. The journey till we leave it behind us is petrifying though.

I've never known society to be this authoritarian (and I lived through the Thatcher years.)

Agree, you shouldn’t be able to deny services based on lawful views, however much you disagree.

I think closing accounts for being GC would be unlawful though, because those are protected beliefs

Has it actually been proven that Coutts closed his account due to his political beliefs?

They claim it is because he didn’t have enough money to qualify for an account with them. Has this been proven false?

NF is hardly known for being 100% truthful and this wouldn’t be the first time he’s misrepresented a situation to try and stoke the “culture war”.

Hi @PinkFrogss yes, he made a subject access request to Coutts and released the docs this evening. See first couple of posts.

I didn't believe Farage a few weeks ago when he first made the claims. Sounded too odd to be true.

It could happen, yes. It's impossible to live without a bank account. The government would have to intervene to stop this practice.

I can’t see the full document - I can see some embedded tweets but can’t read them.

I can see an excerpt about his political views, but it doesn’t clearly state that this is the reason his bank account was closed. I’m on a mobile device so sometimes connectivity isn’t great to be fair.

@PinkFrogss The documents obtained clearly state that he was put on a path to the exit because of his views on a variety of political issues. Nothing to do with finances and Coutts accepting that he has committed no legal or regulatory offence and had always been unfailingly polite to staff.
I hold no brief for Farage but he has been proved correct and Coutts are shown to have lied.

Yes, it's the canary in the coal mine. We are on the way to a social credit system based on political views.

That so many well-educated people on Twitter are celebrating this simply because they despise Farage shows that they have no idea what is really going on.

It is particularly frightening that they were prepared to put it in writing to each other and thus within reach of a SAR. It shows they were not afraid of this coming out, and felt they were doing nothing wrong.

They won't be hiding it because they will use it on their ESG scorecard to get higher up the ESG matrix.

Banks, the great moral arbiters of our time, eh?

'Mr Farage now says he cannot get an account with any other bank, having been turned down by 10 banks since Coutts withdrew its services.
Members of his family have also been refused accounts by other banks, and one family member was told their account was being closed.'

Genuinely chilling.

So who told the BBC it was because of not enough in his account in the first place?

Yes, it is. They aren't after Farage - he is wealthy and nearing the end of his career. It isn't about Farage, but people are too programmed by propaganda to see it.

Coutts. They lied.