Nigel Farage: NatWest is kicking my de-banking case into the long grass

Nigel Farage has accused NatWest of kicking his de-banking complaint “into the long grass” by carrying out an internal review that has no deadline.

The former UK Independence Party leader said watchdog bodies are also using NatWest’s review to put off their own investigations, as he said he was the victim of an “establishment stitch-up”.

Mr Farage is demanding answers from NatWest over what he sees as a rule breach after its former chief executive discussed his finances with the BBC.

NatWest’s subsidiary Coutts had given Mr Farage notice that it was closing his accounts, which he later discovered was because of his political views.

Dame Alison Rose later resigned as chief executive after she admitted being the source of a BBC story that wrongly claimed the account closures were for “commercial” reasons.

Bank refuses meeting

Mr Farage has requested a face-to-face meeting with Mohammed Kamal Syed, the interim chief executive of Coutts, in the hope that the bank will accept it acted unlawfully by de-banking him, promise to delete all defamatory material about him and pay compensation.

The bank has refused, saying Mr Syed cannot meet Mr Farage while its internal investigation is ongoing. Because there is no deadline for the investigation to end, he could be waiting months or even longer.

Mr Farage has also questioned the integrity of the internal review, which is being carried out by law firm Travers Smith.

Chris Hale, the firm’s chair emeritus, is an avowed Remainer who has in the past described Brexit as “a tragedy” and said the referendum debate was “a disturbing mix of xenophobia, racism and nostalgia”.

Mr Farage has simultaneously asked the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to investigate Dame Alison’s alleged breach of data protection laws, only to be told it wants to wait until NatWest has finished its own investigations.

Mr Farage has been told by Coutts that it will disclose more internal documents to him that contain more “deeply inappropriate” language about him.

Mr Syed has written to Mr Farage to tell him that the bank will comply with an additional subject access request submitted by him, after Mr Farage said he did not believe Coutts had sent him all of the documents it held on him.

Mr Farage has not yet received the second set of documents but Mr Syed promised they would be released – saying in a letter to Mr Farage: “It is clear to me that these documents contain further language that is deeply inappropriate.”

‘Fobbed off’

Mr Farage said: “The establishment are now clubbing together in an attempt to kick this as far into the long grass as they can.

“All of this now hinges on a report that could be many, many months away because no deadline has been set for it.

“I have asked for a meeting with Syed to find out what went wrong, to get an admission that they broke the law and to ask how many other people have had their accounts closed as a result of their political opinions.

“But they have just fobbed me off and said they are not going to do anything while the review is going on.”

Mr Farage uncovered the true reason for his account closures by submitting a subject access request to Coutts, which sent him details of a meeting in which his account was discussed by a committee that was told his views were not “compatible with Coutts”.

He has now submitted a subject access request to NatWest, in the belief that his case was discussed within the parent company.

However, he has been told that his case is “complex” and therefore the bank can legally delay responding for two months beyond the normal 30-day deadline.

It means he is not likely to get a response on that specific issue until late October.

‘Should lose honours’

Mr Farage also said Dame Alison and Sir Howard Davies, the NatWest chairman, should lose their honours in the same way that Fred Goodwin, the former chief executive of NatWest subsidiary Royal Bank of Scotland, was stripped of his knighthood in 2012.

He said: “In some ways Fred Goodwin lost his knighthood for less than what Dame Alison has done. The Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has said it was unlawful for NatWest and Coutts to close bank accounts on the basis of people’s opinions, but Fred Goodwin didn’t break the law.”

Mr Goodwin, nicknamed “Fred the Shred”, lost his knighthood – awarded for services to banking – after helping to trigger the 2008 financial crisis through his disastrous management of RBS, which had to be bailed out by the taxpayer.

Mr Farage said Dame Alison, who has apologised to him as well as resigning, and Sir Howard, who remains in post, “are still not facing the full consequences of what they have done”.

He has been contacted by thousands of people via a website he set up to collect data on how many people have been de-banked because of political views that do not align with those of their bank.

A NatWest spokesman said: “As per normal process, where a subject access request is classified as ‘complex’ under the GDPR, an extension for responding to the request is applied.

“Our teams are working hard to provide responses, and customers and the ICO are being kept updated.”