When the Berlin Wall fell, I naively
supposed that freedom was secure, that never again would the spectre of
totalitarianism return to Europe. I failed to take into account what I should
have known, that the thirst for power is at least as great as that for freedom.
Freedom and power are forever locked into a kind of Manichaean struggle, as are
good and evil, and the thirst for power is perfectly capable of making an
instrument of supposed good causes.
History doesn’t repeat itself, at
least not in precisely the same way. The new totalitarianism doesn’t resort to
thugs in the street and the midnight knock on the door. It’s somewhat more
subtle than that, but no less ruthless and dangerous for all its subtlety.
In Britain, a well-known politician,
Nigel Farage, has had his bank account closed by a bank called Coutts that
specializes in rich clients. It’s owned by the much larger National Westminster
Bank, whose largest single shareholder by far, since the banking crisis of
2008, is the British government.
Mr. Farage is a well-known figure,
the scourge of the Euro-federalists, and probably more responsible than any
other single person for the referendum vote in 2016 for Britain to leave the
European Union. Like most public figures with strong opinions and a strong
personality, Mr. Farage is both widely admired and widely detested. If you ask
someone about him, he’s unlikely to answer, “On the one hand, on the other …”
Mr. Farage has been friendly with
Donald Trump and has been opposed both to the excesses of transgender ideology
and to the pursuit of zero emissions. But he has done nothing illegal that so
far has been revealed, and the bank admits that in his dealings with it, Mr.
Farage has always been polite and correct.
When Mr. Farage first announced that
Coutts had closed his account, the bank at first claimed that it was because he
didn’t have enough money in it and that the closure was, therefore, for purely
commercial reasons. This turns out, however, not to have been so.
If the documents obtained from the
bank by Mr. Farage are genuine, it proves that the bank closed his account for
purely political reasons. As Mr. Farage himself said, these documents read like
something from Stasi headquarters. I quote just one or two of the statements in the documents
(apart from anything else, the English used is a tribute to the appalling state
of British secondary and tertiary education):
“Given [Nigel Farage’s] high profile
and the substantial amount of adverse press connected to him, there are
significant reputational risks to the bank in being associated with him. While
it is accepted that no criminal convictions have resulted, commentary and
behaviours that do not align with the bank’s purpose and values have been demonstrated.
… The comments/articles [on ESG/diversity and inclusion] are not in line with
our views or our purpose.”
Quoting a Guardian article, one
document states: “First it was Brexit, followed by a spurt of very successful
campaigning to ensure that Britain left Europe on the most stringent and
self-harming terms. For a while, Nigel Farage then opposed Covid restrictions.
Now, he is reviving his old hostility to action on the climate emergency.”
And referring to some of Mr. Farage’s
Twitter posts, one document states, “Opposes clamping down on
‘disinformation.’”
There are 40 pages of this stuff,
which, of course, didn’t find their way into the bank’s files by themselves or
by accident, but instead were the product of considerable human labor, paid for
by the bank’s depositors and shareholders, including the government.
It isn’t a question of whether Mr.
Farage is always right or sometimes horribly wrong; when the bank says that it
“uncovered” something that he said, as if he had recorded saying it by secret
microphones, it makes itself ridiculous. Not even his worst enemies, or perhaps
his best friends, would accuse him of hiding his light under a bushel.
The question is whether it’s the role
of a bank to examine its clients’ views and deny them service if those views
don’t accord with those of the chief executive, as if the latter were
indisputably true and from which it were heresy to dissent. Is a bank an
inquisition?
The chief executive of the parent
bank, Alison Rose, said soon after her appointment that
“tackling climate change would be a central pillar” of her work, and on the
occasion of the so-called Pride Month last year said, “Our focus on diversity,
equity and inclusion is integral to our purpose of championing the potential of
people, families, and businesses.” This year, the company headquarters were
covered in the rainbow colors of the LGBT flag, with lettering the height of
humans declaring “Championing the power of Pride.” Under her leadership, staff
may “identify” as women and men on alternate days, should they so wish.
Of course, when she said that
“diversity” and “inclusion” was “integral” to the bank’s purpose, she was using
these terms in a strictly technical sense to mean “everyone who thinks as I do
and has a fair bit of money.” The diversity “integral” to the “purpose” of
Coutts doesn’t include those people with less than $1 million to deposit, who
even in these days of currency depreciation remain a small minority. People
bank with Coutts because it’s exclusive, not inclusive.
The chief executive, however, is
safely within what we might call the Coutts Community, because she was paid
about $5.2 million last year. The prospect of being barred from the bank will
no doubt inhibit anyone who banks with her banks from suggesting in public that
she’s paid too much.
Even more alarming, perhaps, than the
initial closure of Mr. Farage’s account on political grounds, which might have
been the decision of an individual zealot and his or her apparatchiks, is that
(according to him) 10 other banks, acting as a kind of inquisitional cartel,
have refused to open accounts for him. Many of these banks will no doubt have
been fined in the past for dishonest and large-scale illegal practices, but the
one thing they will not tolerate is freedom of opinion.
We used to look with horror on the
KGB (the Soviet Union), the Stasi (East Germany), the Securitate (Romania), the
Sigurimi (Albania), and so forth, but now we find versions of them—as yet pale
versions, it’s true—among us, giving to life a constant undercurrent of fear.
As the police caution used to put it after the arrest of a suspected criminal,
“You don’t have to say anything, but anything you do say will be taken down in
writing and may be used in evidence against you.”
Views
expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
The Rise of Totalitarianism: Banks Denying Services Based on Political Views (theepochtimes.com)
