News/Commentary

Nigel Farage warns of ‘political persecution’ in UK, claims his bank accounts closed with ‘no explanation’

June 29, 2023 | | Print Article

British broadcaster and former politician, Nigel Farage, is claiming that he is being politically persecuted because his bank accounts have been closed with no explanation in an effort to force him out of the United Kingdom.

Seven different banks in the UK have refused to let him have an account since his primary bank shut him down.

The former Brexit Party leader tweeted Thursday morning, “The establishment are trying to force me out of the UK by closing my bank accounts. I have been given no explanation or recourse as to why this is happening to me. This is serious political persecution at the very highest level of our system. If they can do it to me, they can do it to you too.”

The actions taken by British institutions appear to be a coordinated attempt to “target parties and politicians on the right of politics,” according to Express.co.uk.

Farage is not alone. According to Express, all British-based banks have denied the Reclaim Party a bank account and one of the accounts for Reform UK was closed with minimum notice.

The firebrand conservative just received the prestigious Television and Radio International Club (TRIC) award for best news presenter. Despite winning the award, Farage was booed and kicked out of the ceremony. The Tric Awards deleted its tweet announcing the public’s News Presenter of the Year went to him, according to GB News. They would go on to repost it without the award sponsor mentioned.

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“It would seem that all of these people hate the British public. It’s not me they hate, it’s the people that voted for me they hate,” he tweeted.

“And that’s why the whole thing needs a massive shake-up. GB News will be complaining in the strongest terms,” Farage added. “It would seem that I have committed the ultimate cardinal sin in broadcasting by questioning the Barb figures, by questioning the fact that the industry actually owns the very organization that rates its programs.”

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“Now you would think in the light of this, that I’d be pretty happy. I mean, you know, news presenter of the year, the trigger was pretty cool. And a massive thanks to all of those people out there that voted for me. The establishment was, of course, appalled because they in their little London bubble, think that I’m incredibly unpopular. Well, in Notting Hill, I might be… maybe not quite so in the rest of the country,” Farage said in his video posted to Twitter.

Farage voiced his anger over the situation.

“Actually, truth is, I’m not full of the joys of spring, I’ve been living with something for the last couple of months that may well fundamentally affect my future career going on from here and whether I could even stay living in this country. I have been with the same banking group since 1980. I’ve had my personal accounts with them since that date, and my business accounts right through the 1990s when I went to work in the City of London,” he noted.

“In recent years too I’m with one of the subsidiaries of this big banking group, one with a very prestigious name, but I won’t name them just yet. I got a phone call a couple of months ago, to say ‘we are closing your accounts’, I asked why [but] no reason was given,” Farage recounted.

“I was told a letter would come, which would explain everything. The letter came through and simply said, we are closing your accounts, we want to finish it all by a date, which is around about now. I didn’t quite know what to make of it. I complained. I emailed the chairman, a lackey phoned me to say that it was a commercial decision, which I have to say, I don’t believe for a single moment,” he stated.

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Farage then recounted he went to seven other banks and was turned down by all of them.

“So I thought, well, there we are, I’ll have to go and find a different bank. I’ve been to six, no seven banks actually. Ask them all, could I have a personal and a business account? And the answer has been no. In every single case, there is nothing irregular or unusual about what I do,” the broadcaster asserted.

“The payments that go in and come out every month are pretty much the same. I maintain in my business account, quite a big positive cash balance, which I guess with interest rates, where they are is pretty good for the bank, too,” Farage mused.

He has several theories about why this is happening to him and other conservatives.

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“One explanation is this a few years ago, the European Union came up with a definition of somebody called a pep, a politically exposed person. Now this could range from anybody from a prime minister down to a local councilor, I think the reason for it was, you know, where people in politics open to bribery, could foreign governments from Ukraine or China or wherever else, it may be, that they’d be pumping money into, you know, the accounts of corrupt politicians,” Farage said.

“So I kind of understand that and get that. But it’s all about interpretation, isn’t it? And what the banks argue is that to maintain an account for a politically exposed person gives them increased costs of compliance,” he posited.

Farage has also spoken to the city minister about the issue which has affected parties on the center-right as well.

“I don’t think anybody has been treated like me in the world of politics. But then the banks you see themselves are part of the big corporate structures in this country. These are the organizations who did not want Brexit to happen. And I think in my case, for probably the corporate world will never ever forgive me,” he charged.

“Because they know if I hadn’t done what I did, with the help of thousands of people in our people’s army, that never would have been a referendum, let alone a victory. I’m the one that is to carry the blame. So that’s the second possible reason why I can’t get a bank account… prejudice that comes from our institutions. But I think there’s a third reason,” Farage pointed out.

He then alluded to the fact that he’s falsely accused of taking money from the Russians.

“A few months ago, in the House of Commons, Sir Chris Bryant, chairman of the Privileges Committee, said, using parliamentary privilege that I had received large sums of money directly from the Russian government, and he named the calendar year in which it had happened. Truth is, I didn’t receive a penny from any source with even any link to Russia,” Farage claimed.

“And yet, because he said it stands, I wrote to the Speaker, I demanded an apology. Nothing has been forthcoming. From Sir Chris Bryant,” he reported. “Well, I wonder whether that is what’s given me part of the problem. I have employed a top firm of London lawyers, I’m going through a series of subject access requests to find out what is held on me by the international agencies and by the bank that wants to close me down but think about it.”

Farage went on to warn that if you don’t have a bank account, “you effectively become a non-person, you don’t actually exist.”

“It’s like the worst regimes at the mid-20th century, be they in Russia or Germany. You literally become a nonperson,” he continued. “Because I won’t be able to earn any interest on positive cash balances. I won’t be able to borrow money if I need to at any point or take out a mortgage.”

Farage will cover more of this on his show on GB News Thursday evening.

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