A furious Nigel Farage is demanding an official apology from the BBC over their claims his bank dropped him as a customer for falling below a savings threshold.
After Mr Farage originally reported that he had been dropped by his bank – at the time unspecified – for being a Politically Exposed Person, the BBC published a counterclaim from sources at Coutts.
The state-funded broadcaster reaped thousands of shares on social media when claiming that, contradictory to Mr Farage’s claims, his account had in fact been closed because he’d fallen below a £1million savings threshold demanded by Coutts.
Simon Jack, the corporation’s business editor, claimed Mr Farage had fallen below the savings threshold, but later said fellow Coutts account holders had been in touch to say “they fall below financial thresholds but unlike Farage have not been threatened with account closure”.
The BBC article making the counterclaim on Coutts’s behalf is still up with no corrections, despite Mr Farage revealing bombshell evidence last night that he was dropped for supporting Brexit and Donald Trump.
This morning Mr Farage has publicly demanded an apology from both Simon Jack and the BBC.
He says the corporation “must correct their original story about me”.
The former Brexit Party leader adds he will be making a formal complaint.
Last night Simon Jack tweeted Coutts’s statement in response to Mr Farage’s evidence, obtained via a subject access request, once again favouring the Coutts press office interpretation of events.
He said: “Coutts – Our ability to respond is restricted by obligations of client confidentiality. Decisions to close accounts are not taken lightly and take into account a number of factors including commercial viability, reputational considerations, and legal and regulatory requirements.”
Mr Farage has slammed Mr Jack’s coverage of this, calling it “mealy-mouthed” and claiming it is “not enough”.
Revealing his findings on GB News last night, Mr Farage revealed Coutts sent him a document comprising 40 pages and 17,801 words, citing 83 news and media articles about himself.
He slammed Coutts for including 86 mentions of “Brexit” and 144 mentions of “Russia”, something Mr Farage calls a “hoax”.
The GB News host says the document “proves” the BBC’s claims were “wrong”.
Mr Farage quoted from the document, citing their meeting of the Coutts wealth repetitional risk committee, in which they discussed how they could exit him from banking with them.
He said: “The committee did not think continuing to bank Nigel Farage was compatible with Coutts given his publicly stated views that were at odds with our position as an inclusive organisation.”
He also revealed, completely at odds with the BBC’s story, that the documents show Coutts had no concerns about his wealth.
The memo said: “Although he is now declassed from higher risk PEP status and so with his current risk status, he meets the EC criteria for commercial retention.”
He asked: “Are you watching this, BBC? This completely tears apart the lie that they were told”.
Mr Jack is yet to respond to Nigel Farage’s demand for an apology.
The BBC has been contacted for comment by The Express.
