{"id":630356,"date":"2026-07-05T12:10:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T12:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=630356"},"modified":"2026-07-05T12:10:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T12:10:00","slug":"the-uks-latest-debanking-scandal-should-give-everyone-pause-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=630356","title":{"rendered":"The UK’s Latest “Debanking” Scandal Should Give Everyone Pause"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UK’s Latest “Debanking” Scandal Should Give Everyone Pause<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Nick Corbishley via NakedCapitalism.com,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

UK-based readers may recall the moment almost exactly three years ago when the word \u201cdebanking\u201d entered the mainstream British English lexicon. <\/strong>The prestigious London-based private bank Coutts had just decided to close Nigel Farage\u2019s bank account due to his unsavoury political views and alleged Russian connections. That decision turned out to be very costly.<\/p>\n

Almost immediately, Farage did what Farage does best: he whipped up a massive media frenzy. In next to no time two senior banking scalps had been claimed: those of Dame Alison Rose, the CEO of Coutts\u2019 parent bank and \u201cBig Four\u201d lender, Natwest (formerly known as the Royal Bank of Scotland) and Coutts\u2019 chief executive Peter Flavel.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Within a month, Natwest\u2019s share price had slumped 8%,\u00a0wiping<\/a>\u00a0\u00a31 billion off its market cap, much of which was being propped up with public funds, and generating juicy returns for short-selling hedge funds. <\/strong>As we reported at the time, the resulting scandal drew much-needed public attention to a long-standing but accelerating trend \u2014 the \u201cde-banking\u201d of people and organisations with politically inconvenient views:<\/p>\n

\n

[T]his is hardly a one-off event: as I\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0a couple of weeks ago, banks on both sides of the Atlantic are increasingly debanking their customers, often without explanation. I gave the\u00a0example<\/a>\u00a0of California-based writer, activist, and social and political commentator Elad Nehorai, whose political views and ideals could not diverge more from those of Nigel Farage. Yet he, too, had his account at Bank of America, his bank of many years, summarily closed with no apparent warning or explanation\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Without a bank account, it is almost impossible to participate in the economy. And it is getting more difficult as cash becomes harder and harder to access and use. As Alex Lo\u00a0writes<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0South China Morning Post, \u201cBanking is a fundamental utility like water and electricity, and that\u2019s precisely why democratic societies are increasingly turning to its use as a method of censorship and repression.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

However, the resulting government inquiry concluded that customers were not being \u201cdebanked\u201d for political reasons.<\/strong> As a result, not only has debanking continued but debanked customers now face the prospect of being blocked from setting up new accounts at other banks, as the Telegraph\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0on Monday:<\/p>\n

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Banks are planning to block \u201cdebanked\u201d customers from setting up accounts with other lenders, potentially leading to innocent people being effectively locked out of the financial system, The Telegraph can reveal.<\/em><\/p>\n

Lobby group UK Finance is developing a platform that will allow banks to share data on their customers where they detect \u201cmarkers of economic crime\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

Lloyds, Barclays and Revolut have already started sharing data about customers, leading to accounts being frozen or closed, The Telegraph understands, following a pilot in 2024.<\/em><\/p>\n

The data-sharing platform will build on that pilot to make a UK-wide system, which could automatically bar people from opening another account.<\/em><\/p>\n

But concerns have been raised that thousands of innocent customers and businesses who have been debanked unfairly could be barred from opening up an account with another bank, effectively leaving them locked out of the financial system.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The latest victim of the debanking trend is the left-wing news website\u00a0The Canary<\/em>, which has accused the Lloyds Banking Group of \u201cwithholding a substantial amount of our money\u201d\u00a0 after nearly a decade of use. <\/strong>The news outlet \u2014 which brands itself as \u201cradical working-class media\u201d \u2014 says \u201cLloyds has not explained why it has taken this action\u2026 despite multiple communications from us\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a\u00a0statement<\/a>\u00a0on Tuesday, the Canary speculated about the possible reasons behind Lloyds\u2019 decision, including its anti-Zionist and pro-Palestine stance:<\/p>\n

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Whilst we do not currently know the reasons behind our debanking, we cannot afford to be naive about this.<\/em><\/p>\n

We do know that multiple other politically engaged people have suffered similar actions by other banks in recent times. It is not lost on us that powerful banks are able to restrict the financial activity of\u00a0anti-Zionist<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0pro-Palestine organisations<\/a>\u00a0and individuals.<\/em><\/p>\n

It is an outrage that the Canary has been unceremoniously dropped into financial instability with no notice or explanation from Lloyds.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Starmer\u2019s Last Attack<\/strong><\/h2>\n

It would hardly come as a surprise the attack was in response to The Canary\u2019s pro-Palestine sympathies. The UK government has done everything within its not inconsiderable powers to criminalise pro-Palestine, anti-genocide activism, including by scrapping the ancient right to trial by jury. Through its new National Security Law, the outgoing Keir Starmer government seeks to bulldoze literal thought crime legislation into law \u2014 in Orwell\u2019s native United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

\n

I need to explain something very important to you.<\/p>\n

The law that the govt used to arrest me, Section 12(1A) \u2014 the first ever use against a journalist \u2014 is a very short line. It is vague on purpose. And that is the exact line they have copied into the new “National Security Bill”<\/p>\n

\u2014 Richard Medhurst (@richimedhurst) July 1, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

You can say something that is 100% factual, but if it paints what they deem a “proscribed organization” \u2014 even one that has never harmed the UK \u2014 in a “good” light, you can get 14 years in prison. (That’s also copied from the Terrorism Act).<\/p>\n

Anything you say can be twisted.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Richard Medhurst (@richimedhurst) July 1, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0The Canary<\/em>\u00a0explains just how dire a threat the new National Security Law poses to journalism and political dissent, describing it as \u201cone last power grab\u201d by Keir Starmer\u2019s outgoing government:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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As I am sat here writing this, there\u2019s a sense of terror kicking in. I\u2019m a journalist. It\u2019s my job to be in the know about foreign affairs. At the Canary we pride ourselves on bringing people the news that the mainstream doesn\u2019t dare. But this terror is absolutely nothing compared to what other people must be feeling.<\/em><\/p>\n

This radicalised weaponisation of\u00a0new legislation<\/a>\u00a0will hit marginalised communities so first and hardest. Journalists and community workers with direct, lived and painful connections to global conflict zones are facing a\u00a0massive legal trap<\/a>. If a reporter so much as quotes an entity that the home secretary has designated as a threat, they face immediate prosecution.<\/em><\/p>\n

Civil liberties groups warn that the law will grant the Home Office\u00a0absolute powe<\/a>r to decide who is allowed to speak. And by leaving the definition of\u00a0\u2018assisting a designated body\u2019<\/a>\u00a0vague, the state has created a total monopoly on the narrative. It\u2019s very much going to be, follow their way and toe the line, or go to jail, it seems.<\/em><\/p>\n

Indie media outlet\u00a0Zeteo\u00a0warned of the\u00a0severe danger<\/a>\u00a0of this new power-grab. The outlet warned that journalists face immediate arrest simply for conducting public interest interviews with banned groups. People will only get one side of the story. There will only be one narrative fed to us\u2026 and it will be the government\u2019s.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The timing of Lloyds Bank\u2019s debanking of\u00a0The Canary<\/em>\u00a0is also curious, coming just two months after it announced the launch of a daily left-wing print tabloid \u2014 and what\u2019s more, one that defends Palestinian rights. <\/strong>Following an injection of cash last year from used car and property website founder Cecil Hetherington, Canary director Steve Topple\u00a0hailed<\/a>\u00a0the new tabloid as an alternative to the corporate press.<\/p>\n

After its debanking, the Canary says it is now in a \u201cfinancially precarious situation\u201d and does not know when \u201cmoney that Lloyds is holding will be returned\u201d or how it will affect \u201cour ability to get another bank account in the future\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe immediate effect has been that we have been unable to pay any staff or contractors,\u201d Topple told Novara Media. \u201cWe have a large team, and all of them are now extremely distressed and in limbo. Many of them are marginalised people and it has hit them very hard. We are trying our best to mitigate the situation and have so far received much-appreciated support from members of the public.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lloyds\u2019 actions have already triggered a storm of protests from across the political spectrum.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

This is a disgraceful move by @LloydsBank<\/a><\/p>\n

Be under no illusion, it’s an attack on all independent media in UK that doesn’t tow the government line<\/p>\n

If Lloyds doesn’t sort this immediately, a widespread boycott campaign should ensue https:\/\/t.co\/VbdqcKcI9i<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Matt Kennard (@kennardmatt) July 1, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

Corbyn told the Canary that the anti-democratic attempt to silence an independent news site was “a very dangerous road”<\/p>\n

Via @skwawkbox<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/rgxQhu6HmI<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Canary (@TheCanaryUK) July 2, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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The Canary has been debanked by Lloyds.<\/p>\n

Debanking is one of the most pernicious forms of cancellation that an individual or organisation can face \u2014 something the FSU is only too familiar with.<\/p>\n

Lloyds has provided no explanation for its decision and has not told The Canary when\u2026 https:\/\/t.co\/Y2YKbFC1wu<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 The Free Speech Union (@SpeechUnion) June 30, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A Growing Phenomenon<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The first major target of debanking in the UK, well over a decade ago, were members of the British Muslim community, particularly those involved in Pro-Palestinian activism. But unlike with Farage, their plight was met with total radio silence in the mainstream media, as the veteran journalist Peter Oborne recounts in the video below.<\/p>\n

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Peter Oborne Exposes Nigel Farage Banking Bigotry @OborneTweets<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/sir2vSAPlq<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Double Down News (@DoubleDownNews) July 11, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

By the time Farage had lost access to Coutts\u2019 banking services, in the summer of 2023, banks in the UK were closing nearly one thousand accounts daily, with just over 343,000 closed in 2022, compared to about 45,000 in 2017.<\/p>\n

Following the Farage affair, the Financial Conduct Authority conducted an investigation into banks\u2019 debanking practices, the conclusion of which was that banks had not been closing customers\u2019 accounts for political reasons. Farage described the outcome as \u201cfarcical\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the US, recent victims of debanking include Scott Ritter, the former United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) weapons inspector who is a prominent critic of US and Western imperialism. In January, his bank of 26 years, Citizens\u2019 Bank, closed all of his accounts, including his and his wife\u2019s joint accounts with their daughters, without offering an explanation, as he recounts in the first minutes of the following interview with Judge Napolitano:<\/p>\n\n

In a letter to Ritter Citizens Bank apparently that not only was it under no obligation to divulge the reasons for closing his accounts but that Citizens\u2019 policy actively prevents any disclosure of any information concerning the decision to close the account. As Cato Institute\u00a0notes<\/a>, this silent treatment often has to do with confidentiality laws:<\/p>\n

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However, these are not laws meant to protect the\u00a0financial privacy<\/a>\u00a0of customers. Rather, this confidentiality is to prevent citizens from finding out they are under criminal investigation. For example, reports filed under the\u00a0Bank Secrecy Act<\/a>\u00a0are restricted so heavily that banks cannot share the details of the reports or even admit that a report exists.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

While Ritter does not know the exact reasons for his debanking, he suspects that someone in the FBI, fully armed with the \u201ctotality of [his] banking transactions\u201d, had \u201ctipped off\u201d Citizens Bank about \u201csuspicious activity\u201d that resulted in Citizens Bank issuing an SAR [Suspicious Activity Report].\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ritter believes that donations he had received and subsequent cash withdrawals before his three trips to Russia in 2025, which thanks to US and EU sanctions is disconnected from the Western economy, may have triggered the move.\u00a0According to Ritter, the \u201cpurpose of \u201cde-banking\u201d is to harass a targeted individual,\u201d even in the absence of evidence pointing to any criminal activity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reasons for an account closure, while often a mystery to the customers affected, often include operational reasons. Put simply, a financial institution chooses to close the account of a customer because the reputational risks of being associated with that client are simply too high. However, political or ideological motivations appear to play a part in some prominent cases.<\/p>\n

The most clear-cut example of this was the Canadian government\u2019s decision, in February 2022, to invoke the emergencies act to compel banks to seize the accounts of the freedom convoy protesters who had blocked several key border crossings.\u00a0<\/strong>According to<\/a>\u00a0the minutes of a meeting between Canada\u2019s Economy Minister, Vice President and WEF board member Chrystia Freeland and senior bank executives the day before the act was invoked, one CEO flagged concerns that if banks were forced to close accounts, it could be seen as the sector \u201cbeing used as an arm of the government\u201d or even \u201ca political weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2022, Paypal\u00a0banned<\/a>\u00a0the accounts of the UK-based Free Speech Union, its founder Toby Young and his online publication, the\u00a0Daily Sceptic<\/em>, for purportedly breaching its policies against hate speech. Worse still, the fintech giant surreptitiously slipped a line into its terms of service granting itself the right to fine customers $2,500 for spreading misinformation. When the news got out, provoking a huge public backlash, PayPal claimed it had all been a big mistake.<\/p>\n

Of course, as NC readers EssCetera and Rev Kev pointed out in comments to a previous post, Paypal has a long, storied history of doing this sort of thing, going all the way back to its freezing of Wikileaks\u2019 account in 2010. And banks in the US have been closing down the accounts of workers in the porn industry since\u00a0at least 2014<\/a>\u00a0as part of \u201cOperation Chokepoint\u201d, which targeted certain undesirable but legal business sectors (h\/t Michaelmas).<\/p>\n

From \u201cDebanking\u201d to \u201cCivil Death\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n

If there\u2019s one fate worse than being debanked, it is suffering through the ordeal of \u201ccivil death\u201d. Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian occupied territories, became subject to US sanctions roughly a year ago that cut her and her family off not only from US banking but also travel and tech.<\/p>\n

In Albanese\u2019s case, it was clear to her why she was being put under constraints normally reserved for narco-barons and terrorists: she had just published a UN report denouncing the more than 60 (largely Western) multinational corporations that are allegedly complicit in, and profiting from, Israel\u2019s military occupation of Gaza.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis fury [came] because I poked the bear,\u201d she\u00a0said<\/a>. \u201cNot in one eye, in both eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\ud83d\udc49 \u201cThe moment I pointed to the fact that there are businesses who are profiting from it, yes, I get sanctioned.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first UN expert in 80 years to be sanctioned by the U.S. explains why she now faces a U.S. travel ban, frozen accounts, no ability to bank anywhere, cancelled\u2026 https:\/\/t.co\/ia3WLhmyV7<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) December 11, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the clip below, Albanese explains (in French), as she fights back tears, the extent to which she has been barred from participating in basic civil life since the imposition of US sanctions against her:<\/p>\n

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\u201cI can\u2019t make payments with my working credit card nor can I do transfers; my health insurance has been cancelled, I can\u2019t make hotel reservations\u2026 I\u2019m being treated as if I were Pablo Escobar. \u201c<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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UN official Albanese described financial and insurance restrictions imposed on her following her public statement characterizing Israeli actions as genocide.<\/p>\n

“I can’t make payments with my working credit card nor can I do transfers; my health insurance has been canceled, I can’t\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/zAH7paGjxm<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 HatsOff (@HatsOffff) June 30, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Other victims of civil death, this time at the hands of EU authorities, include the German journalist H\u00fcseyin Do\u011fru and Jacques Baud, a retired Swiss colonel and former senior strategic analyst for NATO. In both cases, the justifications were openly ideological. Baud was accused of of acting as a \u201cmouthpiece\u201d for pro-Russian propaganda and disseminating \u201cconspiracy theories\u201d about the war in Ukraine while Do\u011fru was targeted due to his reporting on Gaza.<\/p>\n

In the case of Do\u011fru, both his wife and mother were also targeted with sanctions (h\/t vao). In neither case were criminal charges imposed, and because the sanctions are defined as an administrative measure within the EU\u2019s bureaucracy, neither Baud nor Dogru can appeal to a court of law in their respective countries of residence (Belgium and Germany). This is the very definition of Kafkaesque.<\/p>\n

Worse still, these sorts of processes could soon be automated almost across the board, as I warned in my 2022 book\u00a0Scanned<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Combining [central bank] digital currencies with digital IDs while phasing out, or even banning, the use of cash would grant governments and central banks the ability not only to track every purchase we make (and made in the past) but also to determine what we can and cannot spend our money on. They could also prevent certain \u201cundesirable\u201d people from buying anything. Anyone with a blocking notice attached to their digital identity would \u201cthus be unable to do many of the most basic things independently,\u201d says [German financial journalist Norbert] H\u00e4ring.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Incidentally, the digital euro has already become a de facto legal reality, after the European Parliament (EP)\u2019s economic and monetary affairs committee\u00a0gave a green light<\/a>\u00a0to the eurozone central bank digital currency (CBDC) last week. <\/strong>Presumably, even many members of our highly informed readership will have been unaware of this fact since it all occurred against a wall of near-total media silence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nSun, 07\/05\/2026 – 08:10<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The UK’s Latest “Debanking” Scandal Should Give Everyone Pause Authored by Nick Corbishley via NakedCapitalism.com, UK-based readers may recall the moment almost exactly three years ago when the word \u201cdebanking\u201d entered the mainstream British English lexicon. The prestigious London-based private bank Coutts had just decided to close Nigel Farage\u2019s bank account due to his unsavoury… Continue reading The UK’s Latest “Debanking” Scandal Should Give Everyone Pause<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":630344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[20,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-630356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economic-empowerment","category-national-security","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=630356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/630344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=630356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=630356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=630356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}