What can we learn from Coutts closing down Nigel Farage’s bank account?

Editorial: The NatWest debacle is a lesson in the perils of virtue signalling

27 July 2023 (Dave Brown)

As a reputation management exercise, the Coutts review of Nigel Farage’s account with the bank went about as badly as it possibly could.

The minutes of the bank’s wealth reputational risk committee, which Mr Farage obtained by the simple legal expedient of a subject access request, reveal that executives were worried that having Mr Farage as a customer might reflect badly on the bank’s wish to be seen as “inclusive”.

So they concocted a case for closing his account, which mentioned the modesty of the amount of money in it, but which mainly rested on the perception of Mr Farage by much of liberal opinion as a xenophobe.