Nigel Farage is ‘getting legal advice’ after Coutts ‘gave BBC his bank details’
Bank staff quizzed on BBC knowledge of Farage account closure
Nigel Farage has cut his holiday abroad short and returned to the UK early as his banking crisis picks up steam.
Senior politicians, including Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, are beginning to come forward and confess they too have been hit by EU rules that force banks to level additional scrutiny on the bank accounts of “politically exposed persons”.
He’s said his phone was “ringing off the hook” and thanked supporters for their “overwhelming” support.
While he acknowledged moves by the Government to reform rules around politically exposed persons (PEPs), he expressed frustration that those changes won’t be coming in until next year, which he says “isn’t really much use to me”.
Mr Farage says nine banks have now rejected him, including his original bank of Coutts.
READ MORE: Rees-Mogg pushing to ban banks from shutting down accounts of politicians
The former Brexit Party leader the BBC over their reporting of the story, sharing claims from his former bank that they had merely dropped him because his savings had fallen below the requisite £1million threshold.
“I was pretty shocked – and I hadn’t named Coutts myself – I was pretty shocked when they briefed the BBC, and said that I’d fallen below their limit of £1million on current account.
“Quite why a bank thinks ethically or legally they can discuss anything about my financial affairs with the BBC, and a wider audience, is totally and utterly beyond me.”
Mr Farage revealed he is now taking legal advice on that invasion of privacy by Coutts “as we speak”.
He reports the briefing to the BBC, and their publication of the claim, led to a “flood of people” who bank at Coutts coming forward to say they’ve been allowed to bank with the posh brand despite not having “anything like that amount of money” in their accounts.
“Even Simon Jack, the BBC correspondent who broke the story, did put out a tweet saying ‘hey, you know what, it seems to me that this £1 million limit is pretty arbitrary stuff.”
He says he was “pretty unhappy” with the way the bank behaved.
Mr Farage also reveals he’d submitted subject access requests, a form of freedom of information request people can submit to organisations to find out what information they store on you.
He says he will reveal the results of some of these on his GB News show this evening.
He says the SARs will “show that the arm of the European Union is a bit longer than I thought it was”.
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Mr Farage says he is leading this battle not just because of his own circumstances but those of ordinary Brits, who are also seeing their bank accounts closed down arbitrarily.
He said his inbox had been filled with a number of small business owners who deal in cash, whose accounts have been shut down over money laundering suspicions by their banks.
“Ordinary men and women out there running their own businesses trying to do their best, they are being penalised in the most extraordinary way.”
He warned: “Controlling people’s money would be the ultimate form of tyranny”.
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