LONDON: Britain on Tuesday said it found no evidence of “political” bank account closures, according to a review launched after the controversial withdrawal of facilities for Nigel Farage, angering the arch Brexiteer.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said in initial findings that the evidence it has gathered “suggests that no firm closed an account between July 2022 and June 2023 primarily because of a customer’s political views.”
However, the financial markets watchdog also conceded that it had collected limited information and needed to investigate further.
The announcement sparked fury from Farage who labelled it “a total whitewash” and “a joke,” and described the FCA as “overtly political.”
The probe was launched after Coutts, the private banking arm of British lender NatWest, decided to end its relationship with Farage, the former leader of the Brexit Party and the anti-immigration party UKIP.
Farage complained in July that he was removed as a client for his political views, while an internal Coutts document discussed “reputational risk.”
NatWest’s then-CEO Alison Rose resigned after it emerged she had spoken with a BBC journalist about the Farage case in what she called a “serious error of judgment,” ending her 30-year career at the institution.
Peter Flavel, chief executive of Coutts since March 2016, also quit the upmarket bank over the controversy.
The FCA added Tuesday that it needed to do “further work” with banks to verify their data and better understand why they decide to close accounts due to reputational risk.
“While no bank, building society or payment firm reported to us that they had closed accounts primarily due to someone’s political views, further work is needed for us to be sure,” FCA chief executive Nikhil Rathi said.
He added: “The time is also right for a debate on how we balance access to bank accounts with the threat of financial crime, as well as firms’ reasonable risk and commercial appetites.
“An important question for policy makers is whether all individuals, businesses and organizations should have the right to an account, as is the case in some other countries.”
UK says no evidence of political bank account closures
https://arab.news/rhftr
UK says no evidence of political bank account closures
- The financial markets watchdog also conceded that it had collected limited information and needed to investigate further
- The announcement sparked fury from Farage who labelled it “a total whitewash” and “a joke,” and described the FCA as “overtly political”
Top entertainment figures back under-fire UN Palestinians expert
PARIS: Over a hundred top figures from the world of entertainment signed an open letter Saturday in support of UN Palestinian human rights expert Francesca Albanese who faces calls to resign over comments about the war in Gaza.
France and Germany have called for Albanese to step down over remarks last weekend in which she referred to a “common enemy of humanity” after criticizing “most of the world” and the media for enabling Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza.
Critics and Israel have accused the UN Special Rapporteur of referring to Israel as a “common enemy,” while Albanese has denounced this as a “manipulation” and “completely false.”
In a letter organized by the Artists for Palestine group and shared with AFP, over a 100 cultural figures backed her, including actors Mark Ruffalo and Javier Bardem, Nobel-winning author Annie Ernaux and British musician Annie Lennox.
The signatories “offer our full support to Francesca Albanese, a defender of human rights and therefore also of the Palestinian people’s right to exist,” the letter says.
“There are infinitely more of us, in every corner of the Earth, who want force no longer to be the law. Who know what the word ‘law’ truly means,” it concludes.
Published in French on the website of Artists for Palestine, it also reproduces the full remarks by Albanese who was speaking via videoconference at a forum last Saturday organized by the Al Jazeera TV network.
Other celebrities to offer support for her include actresses Rosa Salazar and Asia Argento, Oscar-nominated film directors Yorgos Lanthimos and Kaouther Ben Hania, Latin music star Residente, and photographer Nan Goldin.
A group of French MPs sent a letter to French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot on Tuesday denouncing Albanese’s remarks as “antisemitic.”
Barrot called for her to step down a day later, saying that France “unreservedly condemns the outrageous and reprehensible remarks.”
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul on Thursday said her position was “untenable.”
‘Shame of our time’
Albanese is one of the most outspoken critics of Israel’s more-than-two-year bombardment of Gaza which has resulted in the deaths of over 70,000 people and the destruction of most of the territory’s infrastructure.
She has called it the “the shame of our time” and says she always asks prime ministers, presidents and foreign ministers the same question: “How do you sleep? When will you act?“
The Italian-born legal expert, who began her unpaid role in 2022, was targeted with sanctions by the Trump administration in July last year over what it called her “biased and malicious” work.
UN special rapporteurs like Albanese are independent experts who are appointed by the UN rights council, but do not speak on behalf of the United Nations.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres distanced himself from Albanese on Thursday when his spokesman said “we don’t agree with much of what she says.”
“We wouldn’t use the language that she’s using in describing the situation,” his spokesman Stephane Dujarric added.
The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people.
On that day, militants abducted 251 people into Gaza.
The open letter and signatories can be seen here.
