Nigel Farage rips into NatWest ‘debanking whitewash’

The bank’s board appointed law firm Travers Smith in July to carry out an independent review into the debanking scandal that led to boss Dame Alison Rose quitting.

It concluded ditching the former Brexit Party leader was “lawful and in accordance with the relevant bank policies and processes”.

But Sir Howard Davies, chairman of NatWest Group, which owns the private bank, conceded “a number of serious failings” including how Coutts communicated with the GB News presenter and how it treated his confidential information.

Dame Alison made an “honest mistake” in disclosing details of the bank account to a BBC journalist, the report said.

It added: “She honestly, but incorrectly, believed that the client had publicly confirmed that he was a customer of Coutts.”

But the decision to shut down Mr Farage’s bank account was lawful and predominately commercial, said the law firm. It noted: “Coutts considered its relationship with Mr Farage to be commercially unviable because it was significantly loss-making.”

Mr Farage said the report had “whitewashed the decision to close my accounts” and “comes as little surprise”.

He noted that one of Travers Smith’s senior figures, Chris Hale, is a pro-Remain lawyer “who once described Brexiteers as racist and xenophobic”. And Mr Farage pointed out that the law firm admitted the evidence given to them was “not entirely consistent”.

He added: “Travers Smith has taken a mealy-mouthed approach to this complex issue. The law firm argues my political views ‘not aligning with those of the bank’ was not in itself a political decision. This is laughable.”

Travers Smith claimed it did not find that his “pro-Brexit stance were factors in the exit decision”.

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But bank messages and documents handed over to Mr Farage as part of a Subject Access Request saw the word “Brexit” mentioned 86 times amid discussions about closing the account.

The report found against NatWest for using a letter template usually reserved for those who have committed fraud when conveying the decision to debank him.

Mr Farage concluded that the report “says so much about the culture created by Alison Rose, who has now been found by the [Information Commissioner’s Office] to have breached my privacy”.

He said: “The Travers Smith report is inconclusive and ignores the elephant in the room.

“What really matters now is the next steps that the ICO takes and, perhaps more importantly, what the FCA, the regulator of this industry, does about this scandal.”

Earlier this week, the ICO ruled that Dame Alison infringed on Mr Farage’s data protection rights when she talked to a journalist about his relationship with Coutts.

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