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'.

I bet Coutts' lawyers are busy today.

Looking at that statement from Coutts there are some personal judgements in there, as well. I wonder if that's a criteria, too? do I personally approve of this customer?

And there was so much arrogance in what they were saying. NF doesn't align with our views but we need to accept that there maybe other customers that don't either. That's a shocker, Coutts, isn't it? That the whole country might disagree with some, or all, of your social positions.

@Gracewithoutend yep, and that's what is so arrogant and so frightening. Not only did they want to police his beliefs, they dared to bin him off knowing this could become public. What does that tell us about cancel culture and how far it has actually "crept"?

James Dreyfus has been informed that his bank account is being closed

Stu Campbell (Wings over Scotland) is not centre right. He's a believer in independence for Scotland, he's gender critical and vocal about it, and he's a former LibDem voter, now as politically homeless as the rest of us.

I've known for a while about banks cancelling accounts and not giving reasons, and have ranted about it. But I've always thought that they wouldn't be bothering about my personal beliefs. Now I'm not so sure. And what makes me more mad is they can't leave branches open to serve their customers, because they need the money those branches are costing to fund their little kangaroo courts to discuss our FB accounts.
It's truly shocking.

They really are going for it. Which bank, do you know?

Well I thought that too but have you read the archive article? What they've put in writing themselves does not support that at all!

Yes I was shocked too, the money thing seemed plausible and reasonable. I can't believe they put it in sorting

Interesting distinction. The activists are doing hard, persistent work in 'aligning' modern gender critical feminists with the US alt right (in more extreme cases Naziism), albeit their politics bear the sum total of no resemblance whatsoever to theirs. If anything, the aggressive, censorious culture of GI has far more similarities with those ideologies than even the most vociferous 'Terf'.

It's lazy, ideological compartmentalizing and the kind of over-simplistic labelling on which GI is predicated. It's also the next step in a strategy of cancellation. Now you can be discredited by some imagined association with the politics and organizations they choose to 'align' you with - no matter if you despise everything those entities stand for - and by that means are tainted by association.

Wings over Scotland bear absolutely no resemblance to the right - but GC is lazily 'aligned' with the right, therefore the dog has been given a bad name and hung.

I've never known any movement that not only persists in the face of all (compelling) evidence to the contrary, but persuades large swathes of the population and various powerful institutions to accept their loose interpretation of reality.

It's gaslighting on an industrial, social scale to persuade people that the reality as we comprehend it is not 'reality' - theirs is. Scares me shitless, TBH.

Dreyfus' bank is closing all current accounts by the look of it, so it's not that he's been targeted.

https://twitter.com/DreyfusJames/status/1681624876321239041?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

Apparently Intelligent Finance are closing all current accounts.

Would have saved James a heart attack if they actually explained it all in the letter though.

Correct.
Have a look at China, the obvious example.
In Shanghai .. if you cross the road when the sign still shows red you can end up with your bank account being frozen and no money to put food on the table.
You can lose your job.
Neighbours are 'encouraged' to report on each other to the state for any 'perceived misdemeanour' (what does that remind you of)
This has been going on for years. ( and I say this as someone who works around the world regularly)
Now look at a 'not so obvious' example that happened ..the truckers in Canada that were anti- vax and stood up to the mandate as was their right. They had their bank accounts frozen.
I feel on a deep gut level beyond concerned for the future.

This is outrageous.

Is there any evidence to support the statements about Farage and “foreign powers”? He is a litigious man, is he not?
careful now …

You would need to be very outspoken and public before they would even know your name! Coutts has a certain image and I suspect that's more ti do with it than his views per se. If you are rude or disrespectful to their staff in branch, that would be more of an issue. Do you really think banks can be bothered to check out private views of customers???

And yet none of that raised an eyebrow. Weird.

Coutts is part of NatWest which was bailed out with taxpayers money amounting to £45 Billion when it was badly managed by Fred Goodwin and cronies, they still have not repaid all of this. This behaviour is a disgrace.

A group of GC parents who campaign against this madness in schools were denied and bank account by another bank and a vicar had his account closed because he was upset by the rainbow nonsense in the area where the cashiers operate.

it is just Marxism and could happen to anyone who complains

@LauraNicolaides
It is not a human right to have a bank account at Coutts. He has been offered an alternative account. He hasn't been locked out of the banking system. He was offered an account with NatWest, part of the same banking group, instead. However, he seems to have ‘forgotten’ to mention that

He did mention that in his original video but they only offered him a basic current account which didn't meet his needs. Why should he lose his account when there's no financial need for him to do so and he's done nothing illegal?

Farage is a PEP and as such under more scrutiny than nearly any other customer.
It’s at the discretion of any bank to make decision upon risk, exposure and liquidity exposure.

Clearly you haven't read Coutts documents. Farage's PEP status has been lowered to low-risk and he's on his way to having that status removed completely. It might even have been removed by now. The bank have said they would not close his account over his PEP status.

Someone who is a PEP and with documented income from Russia would be flagged as a high risk,

Again, no. According to the documents, the bank could find no money coming from Russia in his bank accounts.

And trying to claim that Courts, an ultra-exclusive private wealth-management business for the extremely rich, is "woke" is ridiculous, and just a slightly desperate new front in the culture war.

When a bank is exiting you from their bank based, as Coutts say, not on any financial reason but on the fact that Farages personal beliefs do not align with the bank's, eg, gender critical, global warming, that sounds the epitome of woke to me.

I don't think you've actually read up about this. Honestly, go read Coutts' documents to see what really went on.

And trying to claim that Courts, an ultra-exclusive private wealth-management business for the extremely rich, is "woke" is ridiculous, and just a slightly desperate new front in the culture war

Except everything we're getting in the media about this business with Farage suggests just that, and that it's vetting clients on their (perfectly legal) political views and private associations.

And trying to claim that Courts, an ultra-exclusive private wealth-management business for the extremely rich, is "woke" is ridiculous, and just a slightly desperate new front in the culture war

I think you'll find that ALL banks are extremely concerned with their ESG scores, and certainly are 'woke'. I have done a lot of work for one high street bank and they are absolutely preoccupied with what we would call woke concerns.

So if you want to bank somewhere, you have to stay quiet in your views. Because if you actually speak out, like Rowling did, you deserve to be chopped off at the knees by the bank?

Do you really think banks can be bothered to check out private views of customers???

Did you bother to read the internal Coutts document he got via SAR? because that's exactly what they have done - with a dollop of personal animosity on top.