On Thursday evening, June 29, 2023, Nigel Farage told his GB News audience that his Bank accounts — personal and business — had been mysteriously suspended and would be closed within a matter of weeks.

This is his video from earlier in the day, the contents of which he repeated on his show that evening:

He is one of those fortunate individuals who has a personal account manager. Recently, that relationship had changed and he was assigned a new one, who broke the bad news in a rather perfunctory way, according to Farage, and with no explanation other than that it was no longer commercially viable.

Farage thinks it was because he is what the EU calls a politically exposed person (PEP).

Farage said that he had been with the same bank since 1980.

That evening, he had the Free Speech Union’s Toby Young on to discuss the matter. Toby Young said that one does not need to be a PEP in order to have his/her account closed. One can simply respond to a bank survey, as one Yorkshire Building Society customer did. The customer said that he disagreed with the building society’s promotion of Pride month. His account was summarily closed.

Young himself had his PayPal accounts cancelled temporarily. Those closures could have been permanent had he not taken to the airwaves on GB News and his own website.

Young’s website, The Daily Sceptic, covered Farage’s ominous complaint, as covered in The Mail (emphases mine):

Mr. Farage claimed that the extraordinary measure was effectively tantamount to making him a “non-person”, adding: “I won’t really be able to exist or function in a modern 21st century Britain. I’m beginning to think that perhaps life in the United Kingdom is now becoming completely unliveable because of the levels of prejudice against me.”

Mr. Farage speculated that the “establishment” was targeting him due to his role in campaigning for Brexit during the 2016 referendum on British membership of the EU. He also suggested that his reputation had been smeared by Labour MP Sir Chris Bryant, who last year used parliamentary privilege to claim that Mr. Farage was paid more than £500,000 by the Russian state through his appearances on Russia Today in 2018. He vehemently denied this, saying: “I didn’t receive a penny from any source with even any link to Russia.”

At the end of the show, Farage announced that he would be taking some time off from his GB News programme and hinted at moving overseas.

He also added that what made it worse was that close family members of his suffered the same fate.

Of course, Farage and the Yorkshire Building Society customer are not the first to have had their accounts closed. Two other Britons have had the same experience, albeit some years before. They were involved in controversial sociopolitical movements or activity seen to go against the governments of the day.

The Express also had a report covering the Farage debacle and denials issued to two other political parties:

Express.co.uk understands that all the British-based banks have denied the Reclaim Party [actor Laurence Fox] a bank account and one of the accounts for Reform UK [businessman Richard Tice] was also closed with minimum notice.

On Friday, June 30, The Telegraph also covered the two account closures: Farage’s and the person with Yorkshire Building Society. Of Farage’s situation, the article says:

Whilst he did not name the institution, it has previously been reported that he had a mortgage with Coutts, which is owned by NatWest.

Coutts is the ne plus ultra of British banks. It is not for most of the population. I do not know if this is still the case, but they used to send written invitations to people they viewed as potential customers. In other words: don’t call us; we’ll call you.

Also:

Writing for The Telegraph, the former Brexit Party leader said he was then rejected by seven other banks when he approached them to become a customer.

The former Ukip leader said that the decision was proof that “we are living through the politicisation of our corporate sector”.

“It should alarm everybody that a bank has the power to punish those it considers to have erred or strayed,” he wrote.

It turns out other high-profile Brexit Party members also had their accounts closed:

Two former Brexit Party MEPs have revealed how their bank accounts were also cancelled after they were elected to the EU Parliament in 2019.

Henrik Overgaard Nielsen said MetroBank severed ties with him “without an explanation” after “months of paying bills on time and having stable income and outgoings”.

Christina Jordan added that, months after she was elected for the Eurosceptic party, she suffered a similar fate at the hands of the Nationwide Building Society.

“My family and I had all our accounts closed even though I’d been a loyal customer for 30 years,” she wrote on Twitter.

“To those cheering and celebrating the cancellation of Nigel Farage’s bank accounts, let’s hope it never happens to you.”

Of the Yorkshire Building Society customer, at that point anonymous, the article stated:

A leading building society has revealed that it closes customers’ accounts if they engage in “rude” or “discriminatory” behaviour.

The Yorkshire Building Society made the admission after claims that it severed ties with a client who questioned the use of Pride flags in their branches …

The Yorkshire Building Society, which has three million customers, said that it does “not close savings accounts based on different opinions regarding beliefs”.

In a statement it added: “We would only make the difficult decision to close a savings account if a customer is rude, abusive, violent or discriminates in any way, based on the specific facts and behaviour in each case.”

It is interesting that a building society can close a ‘customer’ account, because, by definition, such a financial institution has members, not customers or clients. Together, the members own the institution as a mutual society.

That day, Farage wrote more about his personal experience for The Telegraph:

I wasn’t too surprised to receive a call a few weeks ago informing me that my business and personal accounts would be closed. In recent years, the same thing has happened to colleagues in Ukip and the Brexit Party, and I am well aware of the procedure. No reasons are ever given. The bank simply informs the customer that their accounts will be shuttered.

I can trace this vile process back to 2014, when it happened to a Ukip by-election candidate. Those targeted have usually chosen to stay quiet as they search desperately for an alternative bank and hope the situation will right itself. Not everybody is prepared to hush it up, though. Christina Jordan, a former nurse originally from Malaysia who came out of retirement in 2019 and was elected as a Brexit Party MEP, has allowed me to share that she suffered this fate too. Soon after her election, the bank she had used for 31 years summarily cancelled her account and those of her husband and daughter. I believe this has happened to too many people for it to be a coincidence.

In my case, I was told by the banking group with whom I’ve been a customer since 1980 – and with which all of my business and personal accounts have been held – that a letter would follow the call I received. It would offer a full explanation. The letter arrived, but it merely re-stated the impending closure and supplied the date by which I should remove my money.

I kept this to myself while I sought a different bank. After many hours of trying, this has come to nothing. I’ve been rejected by seven other banks. Apparently, I am a “politically exposed person” and carry too much risk and too many compliance costs …

I smell a rat and am certain something much bigger is going on. For years, I have been falsely accused of having financial links to Russian funding. Even though this is nonsense, MPs have used parliamentary privilege to accuse various people associated with the Brexit campaign of the same thing. Last year, the Labour MP Sir Chris Bryant claimed in the Commons chamber that I received £548,573 in one calendar year “from the Russian state”. Despite my pleas to him and the Speaker to correct this assertion, there has been no retraction.

Has Bryant ever stopped to consider the knock-on effects of his slander? Several of my family members have also had their bank accounts closed. I feel not just anger about this, but also guilt. Once, everybody in the UK was entitled to a bank account. But since the Post Office was privatised, this no longer applies. Without a bank account, you become a non-person, unable to live within the law. In Germany and other countries the right to a bank account still exists. Our law must change.

He acknowledged the account holder with Yorkshire Building Society …

If you were to post a political opinion on social media that did not conform to your bank’s “values”, you could find yourself in my position. This happened to a gentleman recently who questioned why his bank was celebrating Pride. He is now being advised by the Free Speech Union.

… before concluding:

I am going to take some time off to work out what to do. But all this makes me wonder: has Britain gone so far down the road of authoritarianism that it is too late to turn back?

By Saturday, July 1, we discovered that an Anglican priest, a former vicar, was the Yorkshire Building Society’s victim.

Just after midnight, The Times reported:

An Anglican church leader has accused the Yorkshire Building Society of bullying after it announced that it was closing his account within 14 days when he protested against it allegedly pushing transgender “ideology”.

The Rev Richard Fothergill, who has been with the building society for 17 years, wrote to them online in June, after he was invited to give general feedback.

He insists his message was a polite rebuttal of transgender ideology, which he claims the institution has been actively promoting during Pride month. He received a letter four days later saying that his internet savings account would be closed.

Yorkshire Building Society (YBS) told him in the note, seen by The Times, that it had a “zero tolerance approach to discrimination” and that their relationship had “irrevocably broken down”.

Fothergill, 62, told The Times: “I wasn’t even aware that our relationship had a problem. They are a financial house – they are not there to do social engineering. I think they should concentrate their efforts on managing money, instead of promoting LGBT ideology.

“I know cancel culture exists and this is my first first-hand experience of it. I wouldn’t want this bullying to happen to anyone else.”

Fothergill, from Windermere, Cumbria, typed out his views on transgender ideology to the building society on June 18. He responded to a monthly email he gets from YBS asking for his feedback, after noticing that it was displaying support for Pride month on its website. The minister, who no longer has his own parish but founded the Filling Station evangelical network, wrote out “a couple of paragraphs” about how he did not agree with trans ideology — or the idea that you can have alternative genders — being pushed on children.

Fothergill said: “I was polite all the way through. I was pointing out that they are a financial house – surely they should just be worrying about financial issues.”

On June 22 he received a letter from YBS about his “views regarding LGBTQIA+”. It said the comments he made were “not tolerable” and the building society had a “zero tolerance approach to discrimination”.

The building society, which has three million customers, questioned Fothergill’s version of events …

Fothergill approached the Free Speech Union after his bank’s letter.

Toby Young, the union’s founder, told The Times: “People who’ve been debanked contact the Free Speech Union all the time, but even I was shocked by this story. If you respond to a bank’s request for feedback in good faith you shouldn’t lose your account if you say something it doesn’t like.

“That‘s the kind of thing we’d expect to happen in Communist China, not a supposedly free country like ours.”

That day, one of Young’s contributors, Ian Rons, reminded us of other people, somewhat in the public eye, who befell the same fate:

The targets have included those associated with UKIP and the Brexit Party (including two former MEPs), Laurence Fox’s Reclaim Party, Wings Over Scotland [also a Reverend!], a Church of England vicar – and probably many more that we don’t know about.

Remember the Canadian truckers who had their accounts frozen when they protested over having to get covid vaccines just to work.

Here are more we do know about:

the children’s rights group UsForThem, Gays Against Groomers, the gender-critical evolutionary biologist Colin Wright, alternative news site The Exposé, the conservative group Moms for Liberty, socialist outlets Consortium News and MintPress News, the UK Medical Freedom Alliance, Left Lockdown Sceptics and Law or Fiction, as well as probably many more who either don’t have the clout to draw attention to their plight, or who decided it was best to keep quiet.

To that list, we can add Triggernometry, a podcast hosted by Konstantin Kisin — the son of Russian émigrés, no less — and Francis Foster.

Ian Rons, however, disagrees with Farage on his alleged PEP status:

… he doesn’t meet the definition. In my view, this “cancellation” is a political attack that signals the left-wing/woke blob’s capture of the banking system – a new and very dangerous phase of the culture war where everything including one’s ability to pay the rent is under threat.

That said, Rons zeroes in on Farage being the victim of parliamentary privilege via Labour MP Chris Bryant:

… particularly irritating for me, in this respect, is Chris Bryant’s claim last year in the House of Commons that Nigel Farage took £548,573 from RT (formerly Russia Today) in the 2018 calendar year – which may have been the pretext for his banking cancellation …

The fact that these allegations were made in the chamber of the House of Commons, taking advantage of parliamentary privilege to make a defamatory allegation about an individual who, by virtue of parliamentary privilege, isn’t able to take legal action to defend his reputation, is a disgrace. The last time someone did that, it didn’t work out too well – although like Tom Watson [former Labour MP, now peer], it probably won’t stop Chris Bryant from getting a peerage. However, the reason he did it is because, like Harry Reid, he knows it can be effective. And the reasons I don’t believe Bryant are because: (a) I think Nigel Farage is an honourable person; (b) because RT wouldn’t pay someone half a million pounds unless they were on screen almost constantly (and Farage denies appearing on RT at all in 2018 – a claim that could easily be challenged if it were false); and (c) because if Bryant had any evidence to back up his allegations, he’d have made them outside parliament instead of hiding behind parliamentary privilege. The coward! And also, I think Farage could beat him in a cage fight.

The Free Speech union will endeavour to help those whose bank accounts are being closed. Rons ended his article helpfully with this:

Stop Press: I have learned that the Free Speech Union has records of 10 cases where they are supporting or have supported members suffering financial exclusion (including debanking, being kicked off crowdfunding platforms, etc.). Additionally, there have been 31 reports from members of financial exclusion cases (often historical) in which no action was requested or expected, and 7 of these members had written to their MP. But this is likely the tip of the iceberg. As ever, if your right to free speech is being infringed or you are being penalised in some way for exercising your lawful right to free speech please email [email protected].

GB News was on the case, defending both Nigel Farage and the Revd Richard Fothergill.

On Saturday afternoon, Nana Akua spoke about Farage’s plight and said, ‘We must fight this!’

Neil Oliver’s show followed hers. His editorial firmly opposed the financial institutions. He said, ‘To be deprived of a bank account is to be the victim of social murder’:

Financial pundit Jasmine Birtles and Professor Ralph Schollhammer reacted to the closure of Farage’s accounts. Both were empathetic and disappointed for him, but Prof Schollhammer said that the Netherlands has even more to consider, albeit not bank closures. The Dutch government is considering laws dictating to whom homeowners can sell their homes, e.g. ethnicity, income threshold. Furthermore, all homes worth €250,000 or less will be liable for Net Zero-type home improvements. N.B.: That means the Dutch elites do not need to worry about their homes being eco-compliant! The result is that working and middle-class sellers are lumbered with a financial drawback. They either spend their own money — estimated to be €80,000, Schollhammer says — putting in the improvements or accepting a loss on their sale because the buyer will have to assume the cost. Dear, oh dear. Here’s the segment:

The Revd Calvin Robinson, whose show followed Neil Oliver’s, interviewed the Revd Fothergill, who seems like a decent cove. See if you don’t think so, too. He’s a well mannered chap and explained what happened with the Yorkshire Building Society survey and the aftermath. No one commenting on YouTube, including atheists and gays, had a bad thing to say about him:

For those who do not have time to watch the short video, this is what he told The Telegraph:

“I wrote to them on their feedback portal making two points: one was ‘is this really a good use of your time, you’re not here for social engineering’ and [secondly] said I have serious ethical problems with the transsexual element, and the implications of broadcasting that to young children” …

“They didn’t justify it – they said ‘your comments will not stand’. I think its fairly sinister and we’re in very dangerous water when banks can pick and choose who they’re going to do business with based on prejudicial whims”.

One of Calvin’s panellists mentioned ESG — Environmental, Social, Governance — policies upon which medium to large companies are scored. Unfortunately, there was not enough time for that to be explored in depth.

ESG has become an industry practically overnight. Do a search and you will find any number of consulting companies or sole practitioners advising how a firm can raise its ESG score.

ESG did not even show up in the stories about these account closures until after the weekend, although, admittedly, The Sunday Times featured columnist Rod Liddle’s view on it in ‘If the banks want to be loved, banning people is an interesting way to proceed’:

Farage has had his Coutts bank account frozen, with no reason given. There has been some suggestion that Farage’s work for Russia Today — a long time ago — may be one of the reasons, but I have yet to read that other former RT stalwarts such as Jeremy Corbyn [former Labour leader] or Vince Cable [former leader of the Liberal Democrats] have had their banking facilities withdrawn. Anyway, Farage has been given no reason, and none of the other pusillanimous banks will accept Farage’s custom.

This, I would contend, is utterly loathsome, and yet it is happening quite a lot at the moment.

He discussed ESG without naming it:

It is not hard to understand why it has been happening. The banks believe, with some justification, that they are probably the most hated institutions in the country and wish to curry favour — especially with young people, whom they can later rob blind through overdraft charges and the like. So they strike a pose. The mithering near-adolescent dullards in their social media units are never happier than when issuing fatuous counter-rational slogans about diversity, inclusivity and how loads of women have penises. And this virtue-signalling now extends to banning from their institutions people with whom their prospective young customers might disagree. It is worth noting that they are often propelled towards this sort of action by the relentlessly busy activists, who want everyone except themselves banned from everything. The banks and corporations succumb, because they are themselves amoral two-bit thugs.

Even the Bank of England, which isn’t a consumer or business bank in any sense, joined in on Monday. That bank’s job is to regulate money supply sensibly and to manage inflation properly. On Monday, July 3, Guido Fawkes reported that they, too, are in thrall to special interest groups (red emphases in the original):

Inflation is at 8.7%, interest rates are at 5%, two-year gilt yields are at their highest since 2008 and the UK is teetering on the edge of recession. The good news, however, is that the Bank of England have announced staff of any gender can get pregnant. According to the Bank’s 103-page submission to Stonewall, their new family leave policy “talks about parents without specifying gender” and insists all gender identities are capable of birthing a child. Anything about… mothers?

They are also planning to introduce gender neutral toilets as part of their plan to change their facilities. Do they plan to change governor any time soon?

But notice this article which mentions how the BoE was 57th in Stonewall’s placement in 2022:

Late on Sunday, however, there was a bright spot. We have to hope that Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s heart might be in the right place for once.

The Telegraph‘s View stated that Hunt would be looking into bank account closures:

… it is welcome to learn that Jeremy Hunt is “deeply concerned” by these stories and has ordered an investigation – on the basis that it would be quite wrong if banks and payment providers deny financial services to those exercising the right to free speech. 

… The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has agreed to report on how higher interest rates are being passed on to savers.

Perhaps the FCA should also remind banks that they are not in the business of social engineering? They might favour certain causes, such as Pride, and find the opinions of certain customers unsavoury – but that does not mean they have the right to prevent anybody from engaging in our society and economy.

If the Conservatives stand for anything, it is for economic liberty and freedom of conscience, and they should consider it an urgent priority – a matter of party mission – to prevent any misuse of power.

I couldn’t agree more.

On Monday morning, July 3, the Conservatives’ Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer also called for action. The Times reported:

Banks must not close people’s accounts for political reasons, a cabinet minister has said, in an escalating free speech row sparked by Nigel Farage.

Lucy Frazer, the culture secretary, said regulators should take action against banks which shut off access to people with controversial views, saying she was “concerned that people’s bank accounts might be closed for the wrong reasons” …

Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, is said to be “deeply concerned” about the politicisation of banking decisions and is planning to set out measures to strengthen protections for customers.

A Treasury source told The Daily Telegraph: “No one should have their bank account denied on the grounds of freedom of expression. We expect to take action on this issue within weeks.”

This morning Frazer told LBC: “I agree with Jeremy on that. It’s important that people are able to get [banking] facilities.”

Meanwhile, over at The Telegraph, columnist Tim Stanley wrote, ‘The elites are using banks to take back control’:

… It’s amazing how fast customer services can move when it wants to …

He then compared this to the non-violent political assault on Boris Johnson. I agree. It’s odd — strangely coincidental — that these events are occurring at the same time:

A holdout against this phenomenon ought to be Parliament, where all ideas are equal and given time. But here, as in universities, there’s been a shift away from free speech as the common commitment and towards the promotion of liberal values that are increasingly presented as institutional; if you don’t hold them, perhaps you shouldn’t be here. You can interpret this as a response to the expenses scandal. There was a widespread perception that Parliament was out of touch, that it needed to define its values and police them better.

Under the [former Speaker of the House of Commons, anti-Brexit] John Bercow doctrine, MPs were encouraged to challenge the executive and committees were given a new status, creating the context to the privileges committee’s investigation into Boris Johnson.

Finding him guilty of misleading MPs was perhaps a fair cop; drumming him out of the Commons, overkill. But to then write a report on the people who criticised their report was sinister, and depended upon another charade of neutrality. The committee claims to operate above party politics, thus anyone who calls it partisan must be mad or bad. But the court is parliamentary; it is composed of MPs. So, it is by its very nature political.

What a cast of characters history has given us to play with. Sir Chris Bryant formerly headed the committee; he’s the man who used parliamentary privilege to accuse Farage of taking money from Russia, which Nigel thinks might be why he cannot get a bank account. Bryant hates Boris; to his credit, he recused himself from the investigation before it started. His replacement, Harriet Harman, had previously suggested Boris might be dishonest, too – but for some reason was considered above reproach. In an earlier incarnation, she was a legal officer for what became Liberty, a free speech organisation. Over the weekend, however, she welcomed the press regulator, Ipso, upholding a complaint against Jeremy Clarkson for sexism in a column he wrote about Meghan Markle – an overreach by the regulator that will have a chilling effect on opinion writing.

For now I can still write what I think, which puts me in the position of being freer than my MP to criticise the operation of Parliament. So here goes: the committee’s actions are part of a wider attempt by the establishment to take back control after Brexit, and they should not be separated from the unpleasant atmosphere in the Commons towards anyone with a dissenting view on, say, trans – or from Keir Starmer’s purge of the hard Left. Downing Street has gone along with the committee, I presume, because it calculates that kicking out populists will help its cause. That’s the Tories for you. Do not be surprised if, within a decade, it is declared illegal to be a “reactionary”, with the legislation passed by a Conservative government. Penny Mordaunt will stand outside No 10, dressed as Elizabeth I, and declare that she did it “because I am a conservative!”

No, it’s not a conspiracy, just a class of people who think alike, acting alike. The only way to understand Britain is to grasp that the lunatics took over our pretty asylum years ago.

That evening, Conservative MP Sir Charles Walker told GB News in no uncertain terms that Nigel Farage was ‘owed an explanation’ as to why his bank accounts were closed:

Later that night, The Telegraph reported on ESG — ‘Most high street banks are signed up to Stonewall diversity schemes’:

The majority of High Street banks are members of diversity schemes run by the controversial charity Stonewall, The Telegraph can reveal.

Lenders are facing questions over their links to the charity amid a backlash over closing the bank accounts of some people with gender-critical views.

A vicar who questioned his building society’s Pride branding had his account closed, while a Scottish blogger [the Reverend from Wings Over Scotland] believes action was taken by his bank over his stance on gender issues.

Stonewall’s Diversity Champions scheme includes guidance to employers on gender-neutral spaces and the use of pronouns. The company also runs a top 100 index that measures employers on diversity and inclusion.

HSBC, which allows customers to register as gender-neutral, is the top ranking bank in Stonewall’s annual Equality Index, and Natwest, which is still one-third owned by the Government, is linked to the charity. 

NatWest — or Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), as it was at the time — got into deep trouble during the 2008 banking crisis. The Government — i.e. the taxpayers — had to bail it out. This is the thanks we get for helping them survive. They go ahead and close accounts arbitrarily, such as Nigel Farage’s:

The article continues:

Barclays, which offers private medical cover for employees transitioning, and Nationwide, which encourages staff to use pronouns in email signatures, are also among Stonewall’s top 100 employers. Santander is a member of the index, while TSB is a member of the Diversity Champions Scheme.

Lloyds Banking Group, which runs its own branches as well as Halifax and Bank of Scotland, was the only major lender to fail to respond to queries about the scheme, but was previously named as the country’s top employer by Stonewall …

Guidance has included describing mothers as a “parent who has given birth”, to remove gendered language and to allow those who self-identify as women to use female toilets and changing rooms.

Yet, some non-financial institutions have disassociated themselves from Stonewall:

A number of high-profile organisations including the BBC, Channel 4, the Cabinet Office, and the Department of Health have stopped working with Stonewall amid concerns over its schemes.

They had good reason so to do:

The Information Commissioner has previously found that the index and the Diversity Champions scheme allowed Stonewall to exercise “a significant degree of influence over the policies that participating members operate”.

The article also told us:

Stuart Campbell, who runs the pro-independence Wings Over Scotland blog, had his accounts shut by First Direct, owned by HSBC, which he believes was over his stance on gender issues.

Barclays recently had to pay out £21,500 in compensation to the Core Issues Trust, a Christian ministry, after shutting its account over its stance on gender identity.

Yet, some organisations defend the account closures:

UK Finance, the industry trade body, defended the rights of banks to shut accounts as they see fit, arguing that lenders only do so after conducting an “extensive review”.

Tide, an online business bank, became the latest to face questions on Monday as the hosts of Triggernometry, a free speech YouTube show and podcast, said they would take it to the Financial Ombudsman after their account was closed.

Konstantin Kisin, one of the hosts, said he had been told the issue was because of the podcast, which has more than half a million subscribers, receiving donations, but added that this “doesn’t seem to be a very credible explanation”.

“We can’t possibly be the only organisation that’s a business and accepts donations,” he said.

Tide said any decisions on account closures had “no connection whatsoever to a member’s beliefs” and that it was “categorically false” to suggest otherwise.

Conservative MP Craig Mackinlay said that:

he was concerned that decisions were being made by “activist banking staff” and lenders were hurting those who “dared air a view”.

“With most banks signed up to Stonewall, one wonders if too much discretionary power now sits with some activist banking staff,” he said. “Diversity, inclusion and equality works both ways including the right to a variety of opinions in a free society.”

Absolutely.

A Stonewall spokesperson ostensibly defended the right to free speech:

There are no requirements in the Diversity Champions programme over how members engage with any customers, and we do not seek to influence operational decisions for any Diversity Champion on matters such as these.

Our Diversity Champions programme simply provides resources and guidance to support member organisations to include and support LGBTQ+ colleagues at work.

Yet, some banks are issuing new terms and conditions coming into force in July 2023. Note the parts with red bullets:

Hmm.

Who or what is responsible for all this?

On Tuesday, July 4, Conservative MP Ranil Jayawardena told Dan Wootton that he blamed Tony Blair for introducing such legislation with the Human Rights Act and the Equality Act (start watching at the 19:02 mark):

Britons, like many other Westerners who have had these policies foisted upon them, have taken strongly against them. On February 12, 2023, The Telegraph reported on Professor Matt Goodwin’s findings in ‘”Woke” companies risk inciting “hostile” public, research finds’:

Matt Goodwin, politics professor at Kent University, who carried out the polling, said a growing number of companies are now ‘adrift’ from the wider public …

Britons are “cynical” and “tired” of attempts by big business to force political views on employees and customers, according to Policy Exchange.

New polling by the think-tank reveals that the majority of the public (58 per cent) reject the suggestion that companies should be able to demand that their employees declare gender pronouns …

Matt Goodwin, politics professor at Kent University, who carried out the polling, said a growing number of companies are now “adrift” from the wider public by “lecturing them about political issues and being seen to stifle their free speech and expression” …

Policy Exchange carried out the polling to launch a new research project on “Corporate Culture Wars in the United Kingdom”, which will explore the rise of “woke capitalism”.

This includes self-censorship in the workplace and reports of political discrimination against employees, consumers, or account holders because they are deemed to hold “controversial” beliefs …

It seems that, hard as it would have been to believe four years ago, we are on our way to a despised social credit score system, the kind that has been active in China for some time now.

We shall see what happens in the weeks ahead with Nigel Farage and the Revd Richard Fothergill and many others, unknown to us. May God bless them through this ordeal and may the Holy Spirit guide them, through Jesus Christ our Lord, our only Mediator and Advocate. Amen.