The closure of his account has very little to do with the political persecution Farage was trying to claim.
Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage is being brutally mocked online after the real reason for the closure of his bank account was revealed.
Last week, Farage took to Twitter to claim that the ‘establishment were trying to force him out of the UK by closing his bank accounts’ and that he was suffering ‘serious political persecution at the very highest level of our system’.
The Brexiteer claimed that private bank Coutts closed his account due to his political views and that he had since been rejected from several other banks. Farage also claimed he was a victim of “the big corporate structures who did not want Brexit to happen”.
However, the real reason for the closure of his account has been revealed and it’s got nothing to do with his political views.
Sources at the bank told the BBC that Farage’s accounts were closed because he fell below the financial threshold Coutts requires. He was offered a normal account at Natwest, which owns Coutts, but seemingly refused to take it.
Coutts requires customers to borrow or invest £1 million with the bank or hold £3million in savings, to be eligible for an account, the BBC reported.
So the closure of his account has very little to do with the political persecution Farage was trying to claim.
One social media user wrote in response to the story: “So after that whole Farage banking outrage it turns out that he *was* offered a new account at NatWest, part of the same group as his former banker Coutts.”
Another added: “Poor Nigel Farage, man of the people, so desperate for account at Coutts bank for multimillionaires he thinks he’s being persecuted for not getting one but the company say he hasn’t got enough money for their multimillionaire account so he can only have a plain old Natwest one.”
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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