WBD699 Audio Transcription
The Debanking of Nigel Farage
Release date: Monday 21st August
Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with Nigel Farage. I have reviewed the transcription but if you find any mistakes, please feel free to email me. You can listen to the original recording here.
Nigel Farage is a prominent British broadcaster and former politician. In this interview, in the wake of the controversial closure of Nigel’s bank account that led to the resignation of the CEO of Natwest Bank, we discuss the importance of individual sovereignty and the control of money by the state. We also discuss the growing concern over CBDCs and the critical importance of cash.
“If the desire of the big institutions to basically prevent a flight of money into bitcoin…what on earth do people do?”
— Nigel Farage
Interview Transcription
Peter McCormack: Nigel good to see you again.
Nigel Farage: Good to see you.
Peter McCormack: So, last time I saw you, we were in Amsterdam for a Bitcoin Conference and I knew you were a guest speaker and you spoke very well about Bitcoin, but I didn't know how much of a bitcoiner you were, but I knew you understood it you understood its importance. But I certainly think your experience over the last couple of months might have made you a more hardened bitcoiner!
Nigel Farage: Well, yeah, I mean actually if you think about the really big picture of what's going on within the western world, and we could be having this conversation in New Zealand, Canada, Australia, the UK, America, really the battle is, the debate is, does the state know what's best for us? Should we pay more taxes; have more of our lives organised by the state; are they cleverer and better than us? Or do we think, no, actually we should do our own thing and be responsible ourselves for good outcomes and bad outcomes? And I see this as frankly the argument for liberty against the argument for state control. And interestingly, worryingly, during the pandemic, more and more people seem to think the state actually was a very good idea; they were happy to be locked down and happy to be controlled.
So, I came into this Bitcoin debate last year thinking, well, here at least is a way -- I, as somebody who campaigned for the concept of national sovereignty, believing that the nation state has something that binds it together in terms of shared history and identity, and that actually to run that democratically, to have leaders that you can vote for, and more importantly, get rid of and replace them with somebody else. So, that was my sort of 25-year fight. But since Brexit, and we can argue about the extent to which the Tories have made a mess of it, but that's a separate debate, since Brexit, my mind has moved to other things, and it seems to me that the concept now is one of individual sovereignty, how much responsibility am I allowed to take for my own life? I feel I'm being surveilled, I'm being fined by speed cameras, I'm being told that saying this or saying that suddenly is unacceptable, I might get cancelled, and I see these huge restrictions on freedom of speech, freedom of association, even freedom of movement, in the sense that we're tracked literally everywhere we go.
The ultimate liberty in life has been to have money, because money doesn't make you happy necessarily, but money does buy you freedom, money gives you options and money gives you choices. What if the state was to control our money? Well, that wouldn't be a very pretty place to be. So, I came into the Amsterdam Bitcoin Conference last year basically saying, "Look, you guys on the face of it may not think that I'm kind of a natural to be in your community, but I am, and this sovereignty concept goes all the way through". So, I was looking at Bitcoin, looking at digital wallets looking at the growth in Miami and places like that, of not just holding this stuff and whether it goes up or down 50% in value, but you can start to buy cars with it or Starbucks coffees with it, or as a means of exchange.
Since that time, and I'm very pleased I came last year, and I've had a lot of very interesting conversations since with people who kind of say, "Well yeah, I kind of get what you mean. Sovereignty is something that should belong to us", my experience with the banks, well, what can I say? I've been with the NatWest banking group since 1980, I ran for nine years my own city brokerage business, boutique business in the commodities markets, I did all my business banking through them as well. Ten years ago NatWest said to me they would withdraw my foreign exchange facility. I said, "Well, hang on, I'm being paid in euros, I don't want you changing my euros at Gatwick Airport rates, with what they do", and that is, "Well, have a Coutts account". Coutts is the posh bit of the NatWest group and I wouldn't normally financially have been in that bracket, but I've been there for a number of years. And, boom, I get a phone call, "We're closing your account". Any reason? none given.
Peter McCormack: When was this?
Nigel Farage: This happened in mid-April. In mid-April, I get a phone call to say, "We're closing your account". I asked why. I was told a letter would explain everything. A letter came, a letter explained nothing, just said, "We're closing your accounts. Please get out by X and Y date". And do you know something? I'd been aware, Peter, I'd been aware that this was happening to people. I'd been aware for a couple of years this had been happening to people. I knew there were a variety of reasons, but I'd never really dug into it. You know the funny thing? Nor would anybody else.
Peter McCormack: Well look, I told you it happened to me with Lloyds. I'd been with Lloyds for 25 years, I'd never missed a mortgage payment, my accounts were in balance, not overdrawn since I think I was about 19 and a student, and I get a phone call from somebody in a call centre asking me to explain some transactions and I said, "Am I under investigation?" they said, "No". I said, "Well, do I have to tell you?" they said, "No". So I said, "Well, I'm not telling you, I don't know who you are, I'm an adult. If I've committed a crime or suspected, speak to the police, otherwise leave me alone". I got a letter two days later, my account was closing in two weeks.
There's another one I'm going to throw in there though that I forgot to tell you about beforehand. When my accounts got closed by Wise, they froze my accounts and I couldn't access my money in my personal and business account. It was for about two weeks and I only got access just before the end of the month. If I hadn't, my staff wouldn't have been paid, my mortgage wouldn't have been paid, and they had the freedom to do this.
Nigel Farage: But this is also common, and it's happening for a variety of reasons, which we'll come to in this chat. In my particular case, I was angry. I wrote to the chairman, the CEO rather, of the bank, and said, "Look, I've got a very healthy cash balance sitting in the account. With interest rates where they are, you're doing jolly well out of me at the moment. I suspect prejudice", that's what I wrote in my letter to him. He didn't even have the courtesy to reply, but got quite a senior lady within the bank to ring me to say, "It's all for commercial reasons".
Peter McCormack: What does that mean?
Nigel Farage: Well, "You're a high-profile figure, there's a lot of monitoring we have to do".
Peter McCormack: Is this this PEP thing?
Nigel Farage: Well again, we'll come to that. I will unravel all of this, let's do the big picture first.
Peter McCormack: Yeah.
Nigel Farage: So, "We're closing your accounts". I said, "Well, look, the trouble is I'm a very high-profile person. There is this Politically Exposed Person's regime and it might be difficult to get other banking facilities". Anyway, I said I was unhappy. So, I went off, spoke to a series of other banks, none of them would have me, "No, we can't have you, too high a risk". For what? What is this culture; what is it that's got into the banks that's making them say that? I didn't know the answer to this. Anyway I went public on it. I'd warned the CEO of Coutts in my second email, I'd said, "If I can't find another account, I'm going to turn up with a Securicor van and collect my business account balance in cash. I said the national press will be with me I look forward to meeting you. So, I warned them, but they chose to ignore me. And I went public on it. And I said, "I've been debanked, I suspect for political reasons, and I want other people to whom this has happened to come forward.
Well, I think quite honestly, my website has never received traffic like I received! I mean, I can't deal with this, I need more staff, you know, just an unbelievable range of people, from high-profile public figures to small businesses who take money in cash because they're selling fish at £7 a time, or whatever it is, on to bitcoiners and I'll tell you a bit about that, bank accounts being closed because they're putting money through Coinbase into Bitcoin; unbelievable. And so, suddenly I realised this is massive, this is even bigger than I'd realised. And then a mate said to me, "Have you put in a Data Subject Access Request (DSAR)? I looked at him completely blankly in complete total ignorance. I mean, I didn't know about it. So, I fill in the form, in fact got my lawyer to do it to make sure the Is were dotted and the Ts were crossed.
30 days later, I get back the personal information the bank holds on me. In the intervening period, because I'd caused a fuss, the CEO of the NatWest group, Dame Alison Rose, they've all got titles these people, Dame Alison Rose had been at a sort of charity type dinner sitting next to the Economics Business Editor of the BBC. And I get a phone call at 9.00 the next morning, after they've had dinner together, to say, "We've been told, Mr Farage, that your bank accounts closed because you didn't have enough money in the account, you'd fallen below the threshold that Coutts say is acceptable to be part of their private bank". Well, can you imagine? The luvvies, Channel 4 News, the Financial Times, the Today programme, I mean the whole establishment thought it was absolutely hilarious. Here's Farage, moaning about what's happened to him, and actually it's all his own fault and he's too poor, etc. Well, I told him I wasn't very happy.
Then the DSAR comes back and it was a 40-page document. I guess it was a bit like a charge sheet at Nuremberg that they'd get ready for serious war criminals! Do you know, it mentioned Russia 144 times.
Peter McCormack: Okay.
Nigel Farage: 144 times. And this, of course, was the great post-Brexit and post-Trump hoax, that somehow Russia had funded everything. Russia was mentioned, Brexit of course was mentioned. I was said to be a disingenuous grifter. I've been called many things over the years, but not disingenuous; quite the opposite. I think what you see is what you get. It was a vile report that concluded, and said in three places, that he is, "An economically viable customer, but he does not align with the values of the bank".
Peter McCormack: That's the important point.
Nigel Farage: So I thought, "What the…?" Then you begin to understand that from the FCA, the regulator of the financial services industry, all the way through banks and other parts of our financial structure, the obsession with diversity and inclusion and ESG has run so far through these institutions that it's extraordinary. By the way, "inclusion", this lovely, fluffy, cuddly, "Aren't we lovely people, we include people. Oh, but if you disagree with us, we excommunicate you". The whole thing has twisted logic and truth on its head and ESG, I've begun to learn, if you're a local gun dealer, if you work in the oil industry, people working in perfectly legal industries are having their bank accounts closed down because this agenda doesn't support it. The FCA have openly said they will regulate companies now in the financial sector, not on whether clients' money is being looked after, but on whether the firms, the banks are doing their bit to help climate change and inclusion. So, you finish up with banks and other institutions where people are now being promoted, not on their ability, but on their gender, ethnicity, or whatever little social group we've now decided we're going to pigeonhole everybody into, which incidentally I think is a disaster. Do we want a divided society; or do we want a society where we all feel part of one thing with the ability to get on and prosper through our abilities, our hard work and yes a bit of luck?
So, once that was out that's when this story exploded. We began to uncover vicars, vicars who'd gone to their local Yorkshire Building Society branch to find it covered in a rainbow flag and all sorts of slogans to say, "Well, all I want is a building society. I don't need a lecture on LGBT rights when I come into the bank", and his account was closed. So, it's opened up a very, very big debate and it is extraordinary. We knew through the public sector the extent that wokery had gone through. I didn't realise until now just how bad this was with the corporate sector as well. It's led to a massive debate, it's been global, the debate, and a couple of bits of good news; the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, suddenly realising that lots of other public figures are coming out and saying, "Our bank accounts have been closed", has been quick to act. He wrote a letter to the FCA, in no uncertain terms, saying it is illegal to close people's bank accounts on the basis of their perfectly legally held opinions.
So, the FCA have written to the 30 top banks and building societies and have demanded to know how many accounts have been closed. We think it's a million accounts in the last four years that have been closed in the UK alone.
Peter McCormack: And based on a variety of different reasons?
Nigel Farage: Based on a whole variety of different --
Peter McCormack: Not just opinion?
Nigel Farage: No, this is multi-layered. I promise I'm going to come to all of that, what I've learned and discovered over the last few weeks. So, by 25 August, those banks and building societies have to come back with numbers and with reasons, and that'll be interesting. We've also got a review; every PEP, every Politically Exposed Person in the country is going to be written to and asked, have they had bank accounts frozen, denied, closed. Do how many people are on the PEP list?
Peter McCormack: No.
Nigel Farage: 90,000.
Peter McCormack: Okay.
Nigel Farage: It's a lot of people.
Peter McCormack: So, what kind of people are on that list? Can I make that list?
Nigel Farage: My kids, my parents, former business associates of mine. My PEP list is unbelievable.
Peter McCormack: That's your list but outside of you, is it journalists?
Nigel Farage: It is, prominent journalists, military commanders, senior civil servants, judges, local councillors, justice of the peace. I mean, it's quite a big list of people. The argument for a PEP is because you're in a public position, you're more bribeable. You're more likely to accept huge amounts of Russian or Colombian cash into your bank account. The fact is there's not a single example of money laundering amongst any political figures in Britain. Fiddling, dishonesty, but not money laundering. So, a few things are happening, there is a debate.
What I've learnt is this, number one, that the definition of a PEP is blooming ludicrous, because we treat the granddaughter of a former Chancellor of the Exchequer 40 years ago in the same way we treat an African dictator. That's clearly nonsense. The rules need to be massively revised and changed. That's the first thing I've learned. Second thing I've learnt is that the sheer politicisation of the banks, of the whole sector, has been encouraged by the FCA in the most extraordinary way, and they need to get back to what they're there for. They are there to protect the public, not to impose a political agenda on the industry, and we'll see what happens.
Peter McCormack: Where's that agenda coming from then; is it government?
Nigel Farage: America.
Peter McCormack: America?
Nigel Farage: It's all America, this is all West Coast.
Peter McCormack: Okay.
Nigel Farage: This is organisations like B Corp, which sprung up in America in 2006, and the idea is that you change the business model. The business no longer focuses on profit. Profit is part of the bigger picture about being wonderful people and lovely people and very cuddly. It's all cobblers because ultimately, companies are there to service their -- make profits, obey the law and pay their shareholders, and that's the model that works. And it's quite interesting if you look at stock market funds the last couple of years. The most ESG, the most politically correct, have done terribly. One thinks of the Bud Light advert perhaps as being an example of go woke, go broke!
Peter McCormack: Well, it's the same with Costa recently.
Nigel Farage: Shocking, shocking. So, secondly, we need to get politics out of commerce in this way. Thirdly, we need to examine the anti-money laundering rules. Now, from G7, through OECD, through the International Monetary Fund, through my former friends in Brussels at the European Union, everybody is worried that there is a tens of billions of dollars a month illegal drugs trade that looks to launder its money. Okay, so we have anti-money laundering rules, most of ours came in during our period of EU membership and we just transposed them into law in this country, all by the way with the best of intentions, "Let's stop the bad guys".
But what I've learned, I didn't know this six weeks ago, what I've learned, and Forbes backed this up by the way, for every £1 of laundered money recovered in the UK economy, the compliance cost is £100. And who's getting punished? People like you, and people who run fish stalls and want to put cash into their bank account at the local branch. Oh, sorry, there isn't a local branch because even though the taxpayer bailed you all out, you've closed 5,000 branches in this country since 2015. So, you go in with a wad of cash because you've been selling fish and the bank says, "Where are the receipts?" "What do you mean? My brother caught the fish on his boat". The whole thing is mad. So, they are using this, and I don't want to get too conspiratorial, but believe me, the banks are using anti-money laundering rules and excuses to drive cash out of the British economy.
Peter McCormack: Absolutely, we know that. We've known that for a long time.
Nigel Farage: It's happening, but I'm seeing it now. From 11 September, NatWest are imposing limits on how much you can deposit or withdraw, not just in one day, but yearly transactions. I got a report from Barclays in Orpington High Street yesterday from a business that is a predominantly cash business, that they will only take £20,000 a year from this business in cash into that Barclays account. And what if you live in Cumbria? You're running a street stall in Cumbria, there's no blimming internet, you can't take credit card payments.
It's one of those things, firstly, that drives the little man and woman out of business. Secondly, some of us quite like the freedom to spend cash without every penny we spend being potentially trackable and traceable, we quite like the freedom of that, you know, living our lives. Plus, how do you tip the postman at Christmas? I mean, there are still uses for cash, legitimate uses for cash within our economy. So, the anti-money laundering rules need a serious, and this is not an overnight thing, but a serious sit down and look at by government, by legislators, because right at the moment it's a sledgehammer to miss the nut. We're not catching the money launderers but we're damaging SMEs and it's being used to drive cash out of the economy.
The last thing that I learned through all of this, is perhaps the most fundamental point of all, which is with or without cash in the economy, it's difficult to function in the 21st century without a bank account. You can't pay the gas bill, you literally can't function. We in this country used to have a right to a bank account, the Post Office would give you a bank account. You've just come out of prison, they would give you a bank account. And today, in France and Germany, you have an absolute right to a bank account. And by the way, this is not me telling the private sector what they should and shouldn't do. NatWest is still 39% owned by us, the taxpayer, all right, we bailed these so-and-so's out when they made a mess of everything. I believe we have to have a law that enshrines that everybody has the right to a bank account. So, for me, it's all of those different layers. It goes from the Politically Exposed Person to the right for everyone to have a bank account, and bits in between.
Some of the things I've learned have shocked me. One thing that will interest you particularly, with your expertise, I got a lovely letter from a 19-year-old lad, he's at uni, and he works at the uni bar, why not, to get some cash. NatWest account, he's putting £50 a month through Coinbase, an FCA-registered, legitimate, legal company; he's putting £50 a month into Bitcoin and some other coins. I had a chat with him, I said --
Peter McCormack: Mate, come on!
Nigel Farage: I said, "Look, nearly all of these will go bust, but you do what you want to do. It's your money, it's a free world, you do what you want to do".
Peter McCormack: One of us.
Nigel Farage: But yeah, that's what he wants to do, that's his legitimate free choice. And he's been told by NatWest, "Any more payments that way will close your account". And I've seen bigger people, bigger dudes, people who are older with quite a lot of money, who are kind of hedging against, and a lot of people are worried about the Chinese economy crashing and all sorts of bad things that may be around the corner, and again, if they put significant amounts of money into cryptocurrency, their accounts are being closed. Similarly, I know I've mentioned already gunsmiths, people working in the oil industry and just so much else.
I had a chap yesterday, he's got a whole collection of former tanks and armoured personnel carriers, and he was selling armoured personnel carriers to Ukraine. The government policy is to support the Ukrainians. There were no guns on these things, they were just useful for getting people around. Account closed, "Trading with Ukraine". Just the whole thing is unbelievable. So, I've learned a hell of a lot about this. What do I conclude? Number one, that the push towards central bank digital currencies is a lot closer than any of us thought it was. We know that in Britain, the introductory CBDC comes in in 2030. We know they're recruiting some very well-paid jobs out there at the moment, working for the government on the creation of CBDCs. I do not want to live in a communist, Chinese, social credit style system, where the only way I can interact normally in society without being cancelled is if I agree with the prevailing views of the day. Have I said that with enough passion and conviction? Because that's where we're going.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, but Nigel, I've been talking against CBDCs.
Nigel Farage: I know you have.
Peter McCormack: I did it on my Facebook and one of my friend's mums blocked me. She said, and as she departed she said, "I'm fed up of your conspiracy nonsense", and blocked me, just saying that, "We shouldn't trust CBDCs, these are technologies for control and I think we are sleepwalking into CBDCs". I don't think people truly understand the threat. I think there's a lot of people out there who would just be sold it.
Nigel Farage: You have to remember, I've got form in this.
Peter McCormack: I know.
Nigel Farage: I've got a form of being too early with arguments, and been called all the names under the sun for being too early with arguments! There is a change in the weather on CBDCs.
Peter McCormack: Good.
Nigel Farage: Believe me. I was out the other day, I did a GB News event in Luton, public event, 150 or so people came, bought tickets, were in the audience. And a woman in the audience asked a question, were CBDC's a reality? And I was amazed, because I thought, "Well, I'm going to have to explain longhand what this is". No, the audience knew.
Peter McCormack: Okay, good.
Nigel Farage: So, there is a change going on. We allowed government in the pandemic to take massive control over our lives, more control over our lives than we've ever allowed government to do. And I was stunned during the pandemic that 70% supported these lockdowns. In fact, many wanted them to go even further. But now, in the cold light of day, we're beginning to understand it was the biggest mistake ever.
Peter McCormack: Nigel, when they first announced the first one, I thought it was a good idea, and it's one of my biggest regrets. And I now fully understand why it was wrong.
Nigel Farage: And the public as a whole understand it's wrong. So, we've been through this period, this shortish period of very big government. So, anything that suggests to people that we're going to go to a form of government where they can control everything, no. So, on CBDC's, people are beginning to wake up to it; that's the first thing I've learned, no to a Chinese social credit style system. And the other thing I've learned, and the other puzzle I've got that I can't answer, and I wonder whether you can, is that if the desire of the big institutions to basically prevent a flight of money into Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies generally, if they're so keen to do this, what on earth do people do? How do people -- there are still places, we mentioned one company earlier, a fintech company that have got no problem with people doing it.
But I sort of worry that we're a few years away from the introduction of a CBDC, 2030 it's coming in the UK. It'll be introductory it'll be phased and grown. But if we've got a twin approach to this from global governments: (1) we bring in CBDCs, and (2) we stop people exiting the system and taking back their own personal sovereignty, I think we have to try and find an answer to that.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I think that's a battle in politics at the moment. I think it's being fought in the front line in America. I mean, Ron DeSantis in Florida has been very anti-CBDC. I don't think any Republican will accept a CBDC. What's quite interesting is, of the presidential nominees, I mean DeSantis himself has been pro-Bitcoin, Vivek is pro-Bitcoin, RFK is pro-Bitcoin. So, there's a lot of pro-Bitcoin arguments out there because they understand government's got too big. I think that's a really interesting fight there and if the fight is away from CBTCs towards freedom money in America, I think Europe's going to look a little bit strange doing what it does. I would be more worried if we were in the EU and part of the single currency than I am right now.
Nigel Farage: So would I.
Peter McCormack: What I think is kind of interesting is, I think if the economy really starts to suffer, you might see attempts to stop the flight of currency, but I've just told you I've just been out to Argentina. There's two economies in Argentina; there is the economy and the real economy. And if you push people too hard, they just escape. I went to one restaurant, Nigel, they gave me two bills, "This is your bill that will go through the real economy. But if you pay us in dollars, this is your other bill", because they're being taxed too hard. And even there, there's just a grey market for Bitcoin. There's a grey market for money, a guy comes up with a motorbike.
Nigel Farage: Yeah, I can see that, but I don't think it's the job of people like thee and me to encourage people to exist in the grey. Our job is to find legal and sensible ways that people can protect themselves.
Peter McCormack: Well, what happens if you tax people too high? If you raise the top rate of tax to 80%, what's going to happen to a bunch of people here?
Nigel Farage: Well, what happens here already is people leave.
Peter McCormack: Leave. So, there's a limit to how far you can push. They've hit the limit how much they can tax the richest here I think.
Nigel Farage: I think you're right. It's funny, literally the last human being I met before you today was outside on the street. He's a lad, 18, just got some great A-level grades, well done him, great A-level grades, he's been offered a job at one of the big accounting firms. He said to me, "Nigel, do you think I should move to Dubai?" I mean, there's a bright 18-year-old, but he knows that once he graduates, finishes up just down the road in Canary Wharf on a very good starting salary, he'd be paying tax, national insurance, paying back his student loan. He's going to be on 60% tax for the second year in work. And he's looking at Dubai; it's happening already. I mean, who would have believed that we're back with the brain drain? We're back where we were in the 1970s where our brightest and best headed off to Australia, America, and they go to Australia still.
Lisbon; I mean, young entrepreneurs in tech going to Lisbon, getting great five-year tax deals. They're allowed 90 days back in the UK. Well, do you know what? They can fly back at 6.00 on a Tuesday morning, go home at 10.00 on a Wednesday night, and for every business week of the year they can be in Manchester, London, Birmingham meeting people, having drinks for people, doing all the things that businessmen and women need to do. So, we're kind of forcing people away, we're forcing people offshore.
Peter McCormack: Well, again, I keep bringing up Argentina, but that's what's happening there. All the young people are leaving, and they didn't used to. And Argentinians are really about family, their community, and a lot of them are leaving Australia, America, whatever, Europe to get away because they cannot afford to buy property, they cannot save for the future. But the point I was trying to make is, I think we've hit the limit how much we can tax the rich in this country, so what we're now doing is we're squeezing everybody else. And there's three things that stood out to me I saw on Twitter in the last week. Did you see the music video by the guy, the North Richmond?
Nigel Farage: Amazing. Number one in America.
Peter McCormack: Number one in America. Now, some people have attempted to call inflation as a right-wing talking point. No, it's not, it affects everyone. But his message resonates with actually the lower and middle class. I've also seen two videos from people in Canada saying, "I cannot afford to live", women crying, and I think we've now squeezed everybody. And so, now's the point of pushback because the government is so big, they're taking so much, we're not getting anything back, so I'm starting to feel like this pushback is coming, and I hope it does, because I mean, I run three businesses, Nigel. Running a business in the UK is really hard: high-tax, bureaucracy, banking is difficult. Just let me run my fucking business.
Nigel Farage: Yeah. Well you say high-tax, I mean corporation tax this calendar year has risen by 30%. And by the way, our government is called Conservative. I mean, spot the difference.
Peter McCormack: They're not the conservatives my dad voted for 20 years ago.
Nigel Farage: Spot the difference. I mean, Starmer's got rid of the hard left, the Diane Abbotts, the Corbynites are out, and frankly I can't see at the minute whether we have a Conservative or Labour government, there's not very much difference. They're both high tax, they're both big state, they're both control, they're both committed to a net zero agenda, which is going to make the poor very, very, very poor with almost no effect on the global CO2 emission at all. We're a little bit stuck, aren't we? We are a little bit stuck right at the moment in the UK. You mentioned a moment ago, as regards Bitcoin, that no Republican would allow CBDCs, and there is a Vivek, and the younger generation get what Bitcoin is. Certainly, look at Miami with Suarez, the mayor, and the state of Florida with DeSantis as governor. They get it totally. But of course, there's no guarantee the Republicans are going to win next year.
Peter McCormack: No, but they're trying to stop them.
Nigel Farage: Yes.
Peter McCormack: I do want to carry on that there, but there's a couple of things I just want to tack back on, because I looked something up with regards to the energy sector, right? And this resonated with me. So, it is very hard for a utility to close down your utilities. I've got it here, "Gas and electricity companies cannot just cut off your supply, unless they first offer you a range of payment methods to help you pay. They must only disconnect your supplies as a last resort". I mean, I don't know if it's 100% true.
Nigel Farage: It's not.
Peter McCormack: But the point is, it is hard for them to cut you off.
Nigel Farage: Well what they do, so this is what's been happening, what they do is you're late paying your bills, they say you're an unreliable customer, they then move you on to a different tariff, a prepaid tariff.
Peter McCormack: Which is more expensive.
Nigel Farage: Which is more expensive, so once again the poor pay the most. And when your prepayment tariff runs out, the lights go out, and that has been happening. But generally, I mean look, I think money and bank accounts in 2023 are as important as those utilities.
Peter McCormack: Well, you look at what happened during the Canada trucker protest. It's just people who had made donations to support people, had their bank accounts frozen, they couldn't pay their mortgage, they can't withdraw money, you can't buy your kids food. It cuts you off from society. And look, it's obviously an easy way to try and make people comply, which is not the world you or I or anyone wants to live in, but we're a country that doesn't really have free speech any more. As somebody who is in a libel lawsuit, I know that for a fact. So, we don't have free speech, we don't have particularly strong civil rights anymore, we're just a country that seems to be heading in a really, really shitty direction.
I believe that we should have a legal right to have a bank account and there should be no reason apart from, I mean, you tell me, you've probably done the work. What are the reasons that an account should be closed; what would be fair reason?
Nigel Farage: Fraud or a genuine suspicion. The bank should freeze an account if it has a genuine suspicion that something very fundamental has happened. And that doesn't mean that in a normal person's bank account, on a normal wage, they sell their motorbike for £4,000 and put that in. No, it's like £400,000 appears in the account. There has to be some sense of this. So, yes, of course there are reasons. Genuine criminality is a reason to freeze bank accounts. A police investigation is a genuine reason to freeze a bank account. But it isn't much more than that.
Peter McCormack: Not opinion.
Nigel Farage: Absolutely not opinion, and I'm leading the charge on that one, and I think I'm actually winning.
Peter McCormack: Well, look, there's an interesting point that I noticed at the time there were some people celebrating it, people you'd expect, and just cheerleading the fact that you lost your account. But actually, there were people who maybe you wouldn't have thought who supported you actually, and that's the important one. Because this week, I told a handful of people I'm interviewing you. And the two reactions are either like, "God, I love Nigel", or, "Fuck, why are you talking to him?" But the people who aren't your fans, everyone has said what happened there is terrible. But there will be people listening, maybe some of my friends who aren't fans of yours, who might not give a shit. But what's the appeal to them, why they should care about this is?
Nigel Farage: This is far bigger, this is much bigger than any individually held opinion on cross-channel migrant boats, or European Union. This is absolutely fundamental. This is about freedom, this is about liberty, this is about, how do we want to live our lives? And I would have thought that the real warnings from history are that when government gets too big and too powerful and too in control of everything, we lose those freedoms and liberties in the most astonishing and ultimately in the most frightening way. And my fear is we're heading down that path.
I think one of the reasons this has resonated so much is people can say, "Crikey, if they can do it to Nigel, they can do it to me". I mean, that's very powerful. And I must say, the sheer number of letters I've had, emails I've had, that begin with a sentence, "I don't normally agree with you, but..."! So, it's been quite a unifying thing, and hopefully I've showed people that I can be an effective campaigner on issues that we -- this is not left or right, this absolutely isn't left or right, it's a fundamental issue.
Peter McCormack: Well, it's us and them.
Nigel Farage: Well, it really is. And now that I've started this, it's really opened a whole Pandora's box of other issues, other industries, other walks of life. And by the way, I didn't pick this fight, this fight picked me. But now I'm embarked upon it, I'm not going to give up, I'm going to keep going and keep pushing.
Peter McCormack: So, what are the next steps on this; what change are you campaigning for?
Nigel Farage: Well, the ones I mentioned earlier: PEP rules, crackers, need to be changed; cash, we need it enshrined in law that legal tender will remain legal tender, I think that's really, really, really important; complete revision of the anti-money laundering laws, because they're making the compliance costs of banks for ordinary accounts, just the whole thing's uncommercial, it's not working, it's nuts. So, rather than lose money, the banks just close the accounts. I mean, for a minute, you can see it from their point of view.
Peter McCormack: Totally.
Nigel Farage: And then obviously ultimately, the right to a bank account for everybody. They are the key, principal campaigns on the banking campaign. More broadly, it's the deep politicisation of business. Business is business, it's been around for thousands of years, there is a thing called the profit motive, there is of course a duty to obey the law, there is of course a level of social responsibility. But that has, through this West Coast agenda, become utterly politicised, and that needs to be taken out of the corporate world, otherwise we just become more and more uncompetitive and we open up the world to a whole host of other countries who will overtake us and do better than us.
You look at the current problems of our economy, our productivity is desperate. Do you know, our productivity is lower than the French? I can't believe it. I've never met a Frenchman --
Peter McCormack: I thought they were on strike three days a week!
Nigel Farage: I've never met a Frenchman that worked, certainly not after lunch! Terrible productivity, absenteeism and now 5.3 million people of working age not working are receiving some form of benefit for that.
Peter McCormack: So, less productive, with a growing state, with an increase in taxes. I mean, the maths doesn't work.
Nigel Farage: I mean, none of this actually works.
Peter McCormack: On that legal tender side of things, yes legal tender should remain legal tender, but do you think businesses should be legally required to accept cash, because I'm increasingly seeing businesses say, "We're a cashless business"?
Nigel Farage: Pubs! You buy a pint, give them a tenner, or whatever it is, "Oh no, it's card only. I mean, I just walk out at that point. But no, I really do. I mean, look, there are limits to this, there are security elements to huge amounts of cash. Let's use a little bit of common sense here. But for businesses to be told they really must accept cash, apart from exceptional circumstances, don't forget the argument was, "If we pass cash, we'd all catch the virus".
Peter McCormack: Yes, of course.
Nigel Farage: But one of the problems is that if your local bank branches have closed, where do you put that cash as a business? You don't want to leave it in the shop all night, or in your back pocket all night. So, one of the things Jeremy Hunt has said today is, they're going to look at ways where businesses can pay cash in. Now, the Post Offices are beginning to do that, and there was an idea around not long ago that banking hubs would develop. So, there'd be an office in, you know, a little town in Wiltshire, and there'd be a small office and you'd be able to pay cash into or take cash out from NatWest, Lloyds and all of them, through a banking hub type of set up. But again, at least these things are now being talked about. Before, it was just happening and nobody was even mentioning it. So, yes, I think keep it. Don't kill cash. This is the GB News campaign and by the time this goes to air, I will have knocked on the door of number 11 Downing Street today with a petition of 300,000 verified signatures, saying to the Chancellor, "Please keep legal tender legal". And we collected those signatures in no time.
Peter McCormack: Yeah. Sounds like you're a fan of Jeremy Hunt.
Nigel Farage: No, I've never been a fan of Jeremy Hunt at all. We are politically miles apart.
Peter McCormack: Well, during this interview you've mentioned him doing good things a few times.
Nigel Farage: Well, because they're scared of me.
Peter McCormack: Oh, you think it's that?
Nigel Farage: Well, of course they're terrified of me. No, look, let's be honest, the Conservatives are terrified of me. They know if I was to run in the next election, they'd probably lose more heavily than they're going to lose anyway. No, I think what has happened here is I've given voice to something that people knew was a problem but no one dared speak out. So, he's done the right thing on this. Oh, no, on everything else, we've always disagreed. Frankly, if I see him face to face, we're always civil, as you should be living in a democracy with different points of view. But no, they have acted on this, they've acted really quickly on this, and that's a good thing. Whatever their motives, they're acting on this, now let's see whether they follow through.
Peter McCormack: So, what do you think, just to close out, because there's all these issues now, Nigel, and the maths doesn't work. Like I say, taxes going up, business is harder to do, more regulation, more people out of work, the pound has got hammered particularly over the last year, I know it's recovered a bit recently. Everything feels to be going in the wrong direction. Government debt is increasing, we're at record levels.
Nigel Farage: Nobody even notices that.
Peter McCormack: Well, do you know what's the most important thing for me? I keep telling people this. We spend more on interest payments as a country, sorry, on servicing the interest, not paying off the debt, servicing the interest than we spend on education.
Nigel Farage: Yes, and about double the defence budget.
Peter McCormack: Possibly right, yeah.
Nigel Farage: And genius, by the way, just very quickly, I know we're coming to the end, very quickly, well done the Conservatives, jolly well done to issue a whole load of government bonds inflation-linked, which is compounded in a very large way.
Peter McCormack: I know, but all these things are going in the wrong direction, and yeah, massive increase in debt, we've got very little difference between the two parties. How do we make a change; how do we get people to recognise it?
Nigel Farage: It feels like 1974/75. We were in a similar mess then, inflation 27%, unemployment going up to levels that have never been seen before, the three-day week, homework being done by candlelight, Britain the sick man of Europe, the brain drain, nobody investing here, Marxist trade union leaders destroying the car-making industry, the London docks and much else, and we turned it around. Norman Tebbit, Lord Tebbit as he now is in his 90s now, Tebbit said to me once, he said, "You know, the best thing that ever happened to us was the Winter of Discontent, that things got so bad in that winter of 1978/79, with bodies not being buried, rats running through Leicester Square because the rubbish was piling up; things got so bad that people were ready for a more radical different agenda, and I think that's where we are.
I think we've been complacent, we've allowed government to grow, we've allowed the welfare state to grow to the level where far from protecting people, it's actually a glass ceiling on their aspirations, the incentives to get off benefit and go back to work don't exist for millions of people. We've got so much wrong, and you've listed them a moment ago, but I think there comes a point when people wake up and say, "You know what, things have got to change". I don't believe that will happen between now and the next general election, but I think it will happen in the course of the next Parliament.
Peter McCormack: Right, I'm conscious you've got a very important place to go, an important thing to do now.
Nigel Farage: I do!
Peter McCormack: I really do appreciate your time doing this. I do want to have a longer chat with you another time. What final messages do you want to leave; where do you want to send people to find out more information? I've got one final question.
Nigel Farage: If you've had trouble with a bank, accountclosed.org. You've had an account frozen, denied, go to accountclosed.org. We're collecting thousands and thousands of pieces of data, we want to form a powerful lobby group on this issue. And on the broader points, keep fighting, stand up, let people know what you really think, including your MP. It's a mistake; if you're not happy with things, do tell your elected representatives why.
Peter McCormack: I think my local one is Nadine.
Nigel Farage: Nadine, oh gosh, mid-Beds, she's been absent for some time!
Peter McCormack: Okay, my last final question. Are you more of a bitcoiner now then?
Nigel Farage: Oh, I was there last year.
Peter McCormack: I know, but did this solidify for some things?
Nigel Farage: The direction I see us going in, this could be the only escape we have.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, well listen, thank you for this. I appreciate you coming on and talking about this, because it is a big, important story. Good luck this afternoon, and we will do this again sometime.
Nigel Farage: Splendid.
