> and banks are required to provide them
Do you know if any of the political dissidents in the UK who have had their accounts shut down have successfully challenged a bank in court?
Do you know if any of the political dissidents in the UK who have had their accounts shut down have successfully challenged a bank in court?
No
> had their accounts shut down have successfully challenged a bank in court.
To challenge it in court, first it needs to happen.
9 out of 10 political dissidents, dictators, launderers, arms dealers, cartels and run-of-the-mill tax dodgers globally chose the UK banks every day.
Who?
Do you mean like the IRA?
Or do you mean like Sinn Féin, Plaid Cymru, and the SNP?
I've not actually heard of any private individual in the UK getting un-banked.
On the other hand, I do assume there's a need to prove one's identity and if that fails an account may be closed, and identity can be too expensive for some people. Not sure how to resolve that.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2994515/Only-25-Bri...
If you were found guilty and sentenced for money laundering, funding terrorism, or political corruption etc, I would guess many banks would not want you to have an account with them.
There's a list of "sanctioned" people/organisation - who would probably find it hard to open a bank account in the UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-uk-sanctions-...
Of course you haven't because they are just ordinary people who just happen to have unsavoury political views. You can do your own research.
The closest you can find is: - the hostile environment denying immigrants banking services (while an obvious injustice, unrelated to their political views) [1] - seizures etc related to crime (including terrorism)
Most denials of banking services are due to poor credit history and as mentioned in this thread Basic Bank accounts exist as a mandated product to serve this market.
You can see some of the reasons why around a million U.K. adults are unbanked through this research and evidence [2] - suspiciously not appearing on this list is anything with even a hint of denial due to political belief or actions.
So please do enlighten us of all these alleged cases of politically motivated un-banking.
1. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/22/home-office-...
2. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmtr...
I did.
Given I have zero specifics, "doing my own research" meant an internet search, which returned nothing relevant, and also didn't cause me to think of any alternative search terms that would be likely to return more relevant results.
I mean, if three unrelated political parties can seek literal independence without this topic getting into search results, I don't see how "unsavoury political views" or "political dissidents" is going to be hugely relevant to the topic of "who has bank accounts".
For example, Googling:
> "Dessie Ellis" unbanked
gave me exactly one result, reporting on a committee he was a member of. Ten years ago.
https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/press-centre/press-releases/201...
I wouldn't be surprised if he was actually unbanked at some point given what he was extradited for, convicted of, and ultimately imprisoned for, but the point is I can't find evidence that he was on the internet with obvious search terms.
> "Laura Towler" "bank account"
worked on Google. One of the top hits was this thread, but it did also give me:
https://www.patrioticalternative.org.uk/banks_engage_war_fre...
Which is her political group's website. I say "group" not "party" because it doesn't appear to be registered as a party, and they are still on the electoral register list with all the other tiny weird groups: https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/who-we-are-and-what-w...
I'm still putting more weight on "either this didn't happen at all or not for the reasons they're suggesting" along with all the other things they whinge about in that page — if the Tories could choose Johnson and Truss, there's a lot of room for foolishness in UK politics — but at least it's a story that got reported, so it does at least pass the bar required by my previous comment.