Comment by foldr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by foldr | Hacker News Reader

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As far as I can discover, we only have Nigel Farage's word for the seven subsequent refusals from other banks. The issue with Coutts is on the record, as there was subsequent legal and regulatory action, etc. I for one don't believe Farage here. He may have been turned down by some other fancy private banks, but that is not the same thing as being debanked. In fact, NatWest (owners of Coutts) explicitly offered him a standard bank account when they notified him of closure of his Coutts account: https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/nigel-farage-says-set-lose-...

The notion that banking, of all industries, has been taken over by woke leftists (please supply your own scare quotes for the first of those appellations – I give up) is for the birds. As for the establishment, your own take on this is inconsistent, first saying that the establishment is entirely homogenous and aligned against Farage, and then pointing out that the government of the day helped Farage to get his Coutts account back.

Banking has been taken over by HR and regulators

>taken over by HR

Who hasn't?

> and regulators

Good! (I wonder why?)

This is quite different from the claim that Coutts, of all organisations, was in hoc to 'woke leftists' while the country was under a Conservative government.

You don't actually think the Tory party is right wing, surely?

Theresa May et al instituted net zero basically without a vote, huge liberalisation of various social matters, enormous spending on welfare, locked the country down, and then imported 4 million people!

I do not think that the Tory party is leftist, or 'woke' (whatever that even means these days).

They are or at least were in those years died in the wool woke. They minted coins with "diversity built Britain" on them, rishi held one up for the camera!

Again, we run into the fact that 'woke' is now a meaningless term of abuse. Most people would take it as an uncontroversial and largely apolitical observation that ethnic minority communities have made a significant contribution to the history of Britain (which was the point of the coin). If you think that's an example of woke extremism of some kind, it says more about you than about the Conservative party.

Sunak himself certainly didn't present as a dyed in the wool wokist in the lead up to his permiership:

> Whether it’s pulling down statues of historic figures, replacing the school curriculum with anti-British propaganda or rewriting the English language so we can’t even use words like ‘man’, ‘woman’ or ‘mother’ without being told we’re offending someone [... etc. etc.]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/29/rishi-sunak...

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