Coutts Boss Steps Down Over Nigel Farage Bank Account Closure

Undated file photo of Coutts bank on the Strand, central London. Yui Mok/PA Media

The chief executive of private bank Coutts is stepping down over his handling of the closure of Nigel Farage’s bank account, it has been announced.

Peter Flavel became the second senior executive at NatWest Group, which owns Coutts, to depart over the incident.

It follows the resignation of NatWest’s chief executive Dame Alison Rose in the early hours of Wednesday.

File photo of Dame Alison Rose, dated Feb. 14, 2020. Nicholas T. Ansell/PA Media

The former Brexit Party leader claimed earlier this month that the prestigious bank he had been with for over 40 years has closed his account with “no explanation.”

According to internal dossiers Mr. Farage acquired from the bank, Coutts shut his bank account because it found his public statements did “not align” with its values.

City Minister Andrew Griffith told the UK’s top bankers on Wednesday that the idea that a person could have their account terminated for expressing their political views is “wholly unacceptable.”

‘Right Decision’

NatWest’s new chief executive Paul Thwaite said on Thursday: “I have agreed with Peter Flavel that he will step down as Coutts CEO and CEO of our wealth businesses by mutual consent with immediate effect.

“Whilst I will be personally sorry to lose Peter as a colleague, I believe this is the right decision for Coutts and the wider group.”

Mr. Flavel said: “In the handling of Mr. Farage’s case we have fallen below the bank’s high standards of personal service.

“As CEO of Coutts, it is right that I bear ultimate responsibility for this, which is why I am stepping down.”

Mr. Farage commented that Mr. Flavel’s departure was “only a matter of time.”

He wrote on Twitter: “The ultimate responsibility for the dossier debanking me for my political views lies with him. I even wrote to Mr. Flavel twice before going public and didn’t receive an acknowledgement.”

Nigel Farage speaks during a visit at Dover harbour, in Dover, Britain, on Aug. 12, 2020. Matthew Childs/Reuters

‘Tough Action’

Earlier, Rishi Sunak said that the government is taking “tough action” to ensure banks behave fairly.

The prime minister told broadcasters in northwest London: “We have passed new laws to ensure banks do treat customers fairly and they are not discriminating against people because they are exercising their lawful right to free speech.

“And we’re making sure that people, if banks are going to take away their bank accounts, have the ability to challenge that and have those bank accounts re-instated through the ombudsman.”

Mr. Sunak did not back calls for the resignation of NatWest Group chairman Sir Howard Davies, after Mr. Farage demanded the resignation of the entire bank board.

But he also did not say whether he had confidence in Mr. Davies.

He said: “This isn’t about any one individual, it’s about values—do you believe in free speech and not to be discriminated against because of your legally held views? Do you believe in privacy, particularly on matters as sensitive as your financial information? Those are the values and questions at stake here.”

‘Social Credit System’

Toby Young, founder and general secretary of the Free Speech Union, compared the big banks’ “debanking” practices to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime’s “social credit system.”

“Trying to suppress dissent from the official prevailing orthodoxy by threatening people with closing their accounts” is a “brutal form of censorship that emerged in communist China,” Mr. Young told NTD, an Epoch Times affiliate.

He said China has exported to the West its so-called “social credit system,” which he said is a “particularly sinister form of cancel culture” and a “brutally effective way of silencing people.”

“In China, it’s people who dissent from the official Communist Party line. But in the West, it seems to be people who dissent from the woke orthodoxy on issues like diversity, anti-racism, trans inclusion, and climate change.

“There’s a small cluster of issues and if you take a dissenting view, if you challenge the prevailing orthodoxy, you will be punished not by the state, but by these large corporations.”

Mr. Young added: “It is really shocking that this censorious culture, this attack on free speech—developed by a brutal totalitarian regime—has effectively been taken up by the kind of titans of the capitalist system. And I’m glad that the UK government is doing what it can to snuff it out.”

Jane Werrell of NTD and PA Media contributed to this report.