'Complete and utter farce!' Furious Nigel Farage rages at 'whitewash' debanking probe

Furious Nigel Farage branded a debanking report by the UK's financial watchdog a "total whitewash".

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said there was no evidence of bank accounts being closed due to the political views of customers.

But the former Ukip and Brexit Party leader - who was at the centre of a debanking row earlier this year - described the findings as a "complete and utter farce".

Mr Farage warned Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and Economic Secretary to the Treasury Andrew Griffith that it "isn't good enough".

He said: "It's a complete and utter farce, it is a total whitewash, it is a joke.

"Now the ball I think is firmly back in the court of the Government. Andrew Griffith and Jeremy Hunt this isn't good enough.

"We need sackings of the board, we need people put in positions who aren't overtly political. If we don't have a proper regulator for our banking industry what hope is there?"

The inquiry was launched after Mr Farage went public about being cut off by prestigious private bank Coutts, which is owned by NatWest Group.

He used a subject access request to acquire a dossier indicating his account was being shut partly due to political reasons.

But his case is not believed to be covered by the FCA's probe as the account was not actually closed.

In what it called "preliminary insights", the regulator said data submitted to it by banks and others "suggests that no firm closed an account between July 2022 and June 2023 primarily because of a customer's political views".

But the watchdog admitted that the information collected was limited and said it needs to investigate further "to be sure".

It said it plans to work further with banks, building societies and payment companies to verify the data they supplied and better understand why and when they close accounts due to reputational risk.

Conservative MP Danny Kruger said: “So the regulator who presided over the political debanking scandal has failed to find evidence of it.

“They simply asked banks if they were guilty without asking those who thought they might be victims to come forward. We now need to ask serious questions about the FCA itself.”

Mr Griffith said: “Free speech is a fundamental human right. No ifs, no buts - everyone must be able to express their lawful opinions without fear of losing the vital access to a bank account.

"We have already acted to force banks to explain and delay any decision to close an account to protect freedom of expression – meaning customers will have a 90 day notice period and a clear explanation for any account closure. That will be backed up in legislation this year.

"We note the initial report of the FCA. Clearly there is more to be done to validate the submissions by banks and to ensure that the FCA have thoroughly followed up de-banked customer perspectives.”

An FCA spokesperson said: "We set out very clearly from the outset how we would approach this issue.

"We have said we will do further work to be doubly sure that accounts aren't being closed because of customer's political views.

"And we are doing separate work to ensure that individuals in public roles, such as politicians, are not being debanked unfairly, because of their job. We will report back on that next year."