Nigel Farage, the former leader of the pro-Brexit UK Independence Party, said his bank accounts are being closed with “no explanation or recourse.”
The politician and broadcaster blamed “the establishment” for the decision, adding in a video posted on social media Thursday that he had tried unsuccessfully to open new accounts with several other lenders.
“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,” Farage said.
He said he’d been with the unnamed lender since 1980 and had spent the past two months trying to open new accounts at seven other banks without success. He said in a subsequent video that his immediate family had also been impacted.
He theorized his debanking was may have been a result of his designation as a “politically exposed person,” a regime that requires banks to carry out checks on elected politicians and their families who could be at risk of foreign bribery.
He pointed to claims made in the House of Commons by Labour lawmaker Chris Bryant that he received £548,573 from the Russia Today television station in 2018, something Farage has vehemently denied. He also cited a 2018 Bloomberg News story that he’d helped engineer a move in sterling on the night of the Brexit referendum that saw hedge funds make millions off the pound’s collapse.
“That isn’t true, either,” he said.
He also said that his bank had contacted him on Thursday evening to reiterate the move was a commercial decision and that he could open a personal banking account with another lender in the group. But “that doesn’t apply to the business account so frankly isn’t of much use to me,” Farage said, adding he was considering leaving the UK.
When reached for comment, he responded by saying that “organizations like Bloomberg have led directly to this.” He declined to name the banks involved.
The Times of London reported in 2019 that he was a customer of Coutts, the private bank that is part of NatWest Group Plc. A spokesperson for Coutts didn’t respond to a request for comment.
