Farage is bigger than climate change

I’ve gone on record saying that, post Boris, I have no one to vote for. Sunak is a lying, back-stabbing, out-of-touch, closet rejoiner, and while some of the alternative right-of-centre parties look good at first blush, some of their off-the-cuff pronouncements raise my eyebrows, and some of their supporters raise my hackles. So I have been politically homeless, but that might be about to change.

One of the most hole-ly arguments trotted out on Twitter in response to the de-banking of Farage is that it’s a non-story, he’s full of himself, there are far more important things happening in the world (climate change, wars) and Farage should accept he isn’t rich enough for Coutts, shuddup and open an account with Nat West, Coutts' owners, instead.

The water soon gushed out of all that when it was revealed: there was a Facebook page of 10,000 Kafkaesqued de-banked souls and anyone could be next, the water company barons, perhaps? Further, Coutts committed the cardinal banking sin – publicly revealing financial information about a client; other ‘unwealthy’ clients bank at Coutts without being similarly cancelled; and Farage was only offered an account at Nat West once he kicked up a fuss (did they not see that coming?) but he needs a business account and that hasn’t been offered so he is still effectively cancelled.

Enough of the specifics; let’s look at the principles. Firstly, changing bank accounts is not as simple as flicking a switch. It takes a lot of work and the risks of something going wrong somewhere are huge: direct debits and standing orders to change; links to credit cards and savings accounts to update; stationery to re-draft, etc. Being forced to move banks without justification, e.g. fraud or dis-respect of lending facilities, is therefore a form of abuse. Reading the above to-do list reminds me that not having a bank account is not an option these days. It’s impossible to function in society without one, and the enforced transition away from cash to blanket digital transactions (I don’t remember voting for this, do you?) means the paralysis is compounded.

Therefore, without bank accounts, society can’t function. If banks deny accounts on a whim, as in Farage’s case, then society can’t function properly, just as it struggles to function during extreme weather thanks to climate change. Ta dah!

There’s more. Everyone is up in arms at Putin seizing assets of his enemies so that they can’t access them or operate their businesses. Coutts withdrawing Farage’s banking facilities means Farage can’t access his assets easily and his business capabilities will, at the least, be interrupted. This is why this is such a huge story and deserves to push climate change off the top headlines at least for a few days. Morally speaking, there is nothing to separate a British bank from a Russian tyrant. Mull on that with your mocha!

I’m still not done. Another argument I saw on Twitter in defence of Coutts is that it has a right to choose with whom it does business and should not be coerced to do otherwise. This has been trotted out by the left. Their hatred of Farage is so great that they’d rather support a bank, and a toffs’ bank at that and endorse a fundamental tenet of capitalism, rather than the father of Brexit. Such a stance is taken under the guise of freedom being dual-hatted: Farage has freedoms, they say, but so do banks. Actually, no. Farage needs Coutts more than Coutts need Farage, which means there’s a power imbalance; therefore, morally, Coutts has a greater duty of care towards its less powerful (aka more vulnerable) client and mustn’t exercise its freedoms without due regard to the impacts on others.

Some Titters have tried to draw a parallel with owning a sweet shop: for example, if I owned a sweet shop, crowed the obnoxious Chris Packham, I would refuse to sell sweets to Farage because he doesn’t share my values. At least Packham makes it easy for us more enlightened to pull the rug from under his flat feet. Selling sweets isn’t on a par with expediting financial transactions. There’s no power imbalance. End of.

But it’s the ‘doesn’t share my values’ claim that has me laughing into my latte. Supercilious. Super-silly. I’ve quoted Jesus before (Mark 10:25): “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man [by that, He means ‘arrogant’] to enter into the kingdom of God.” For all Farage’s faults, I haven’t seen evidence of him claiming to be better than others, i.e. having superior values. His underlying tenet is that all opinions are to be respected, and that the democratic will of the people should, well, will out which actually means his values are sound if not superior to Packham’s et al.

Given my opening paragraph, does that mean I’m going to vote for Farage / Farage’s party at the next election? I might, if he forms one/joins one, on this banking issue alone. Also in the running is the Reclaim Party led by Laurence Fox. I’ve looked at them/him before and decided oh no thank you, but Lozza stood in Boris’s former Uxbridge seat at the by-election yesterday. He tweeted, “At the count. Our media team have approached the @bbc and been told there are ‘No circumstances whatsoever’ in which they would speak to me. ‘Even if we won?’ Said my media staff. ‘Even if you won.’ Said the @BBC … But that is the state propaganda service for you. The @bbc are rigging elections.”

Yup. The BBC are, given their power, rigging elections to block people they don’t agree with. Coutts and Nat West are withdrawing banking facilities from people they don’t agree with. I will therefore vote for anyone who abhors such practices, no matter how distasteful their views on anything else. No doubt the left will accuse me of facilitating the rise of right-wing extremism in Britain. I would counter that we already live in a fascist state, thanks to the left’s / metropolitan elite’s intolerance of free speech and democratic principles. They’ve made the bed that I and others are trying to strip.