What is really up with Nigel Farage's bank account? We discuss, and hear from the man at the centre of what's quickly become a national banking storm. 
And Defence Committee Chair and senior Tory MP Tobias Ellwood published a video earlier this week extolling the virtues of Afghanistan. Sort of forgetting that the country is led by the murderous Taliban regime. He now faces a no confidence vote. Why on earth did he do that?

This is a Global Player original podcast.

Bet you weren't expecting to hear him today on the news agents.

He has been in the news rather a lot over his banking arrangements and the fact that Coutts have blackballed him and said, we don't want you to bank with us any longer.

It initially seemed that it was just a matter of money.

But there does seem to have been a political element to it in that Coutts Bank didn't much like Nigel Farage's views and took decisions accordingly.

So why does this matter beyond a quite rich man not any longer being able to bank with a very rich bank?

It matters because, as Nigel Farage perhaps uniquely can, he has managed to pull and catch virtually all of the right of centre political establishment and bring them in as part of this story, from the Prime Minister and Home Secretary down.

So on today's episode, what is Nigel Farage playing at?

It's John, It's Lewis and later on today's show we're also going to be talking about another Conservative, this time a Conservative MP, who is finding himself in a little bit of trouble.

Tobias Elwood, the chair of the Defence Select Committee, who has decided to go on a trip to Afghanistan and then post a video about how great Afghanistan now is.

Well, now it's being ruled by the Taliban.

Yeah, just not so great if you're a woman.

We'll be coming to that a little bit later on, but we're going to start with Nigel Farage, who has always been a master of communication.

And the war he is engaged in with Coots seems to be going in 1 direction.

And I sort of weighed in a bit on this on Twitter.

When it was reported by the BBC that the only reason he'd lost his bank account was he wasn't wealthy enough and I tweeted you must feel a bit of a Charlie if you're Nigel Farage and you claim that it's all an establishment stitch-up that your accounts being closed when it's just you're not rich enough for coots.

It turns out that actually he did have something of a grounding in his claims that coots had closed him down for political reasons and so today I felt I owed him a bit of an apology and Mr Farage, somewhat uncomfortably, has been back in touch with us.

Hello news agents, it's Nigel Farage here.

I want to say a big mega thank you to John Sopel.

I fully accept your apology, I really genuinely do and thank you.

And I think for all of us as broadcasters, we have a responsibility here because it is monstrous that anyone's bank account should be closed down because of their perfectly legal political views.

But far bigger than that, thousands of businesses all over this country being shut down by the banks every year just because they operate in cash.

And I really think it's time all of us stood up for the little man and little woman.

You can see why he's so big on cameo, can't you?

But the point is, you know, before this descends into too much of a joke and sparing John's blushes, and actually I think I'm going to go on to actually why I think you weren't totally off the money, actually, with regards to this.

I think this is murkier as a narrative of a story than Farage was initially wrong, actually turns out Cootes was right.

The point of why the sort of narrative of this story has been that as John said, initially Farage posted this video saying Cootes or a bank has taken their account away from him for political reasons.

The BBC is then briefed by Cootes that that's not true, it's just about the mortgage and about the fact that he didn't have enough money.

Then Farage gets this subject access request, which is becoming more and more common, where a person can request the documents that pertain to their file and to themselves from Coots, in this case.

And he put that out in public, or he put it out with the Daily Mail, not in full, but a redacted version, which basically did, in fact, seem to indicate that politics and Farage's reputation and the reputational risk was at play.

And then just this morning, Coots hit back, denying at least part of that, saying that decisions about whether or not to close someone's account are not taken solely, solely on the basis of their reputation and politics and so on.

So it does seem that coups are accepting that Farage's reputation and the potential for Farage to be an unpredictable actor, let's put it that way, was part of their consideration.

But they're saying it wasn't the only part.

I suppose if someone's political outlook, and it talked about him being xenophobic and whatever, not my views, nowhere near my views.

But if that is part of a reason for denying someone a bank account, when they have engaged in democratic politics and they've tried to make their influence felt via the ballot box, and we could revisit the whole Brexit argument, which I think would be a waste of time, but he was a pretty effective campaigner, political campaigner, and won vote

with the help of some others, Boris Johnson, etc.

To deny a democratic politician a bank account, whether they be from the left, or from the right, or from the centre, if they are on the outside of Democratic politics and want to overturn the state and overturn whatever then fair enough I just think it's a very dangerous slippery slope that you start creating criteria on which you can deny somebody a bank account because it becomes incredibly subjective.

And although I do think Coutts have questions to answer about this, and they've not been entirely transparent, they're not a particularly transparent institution, They are a bank for extremely wealthy people.

Whilst that is true, I do think we have to be clear about the terms here, right?

He's not being denied a bank account full stop.

In fact, Coutts have actually offered him, because it is owned by NatWest, which is of course partly owned by all of us, the state.

They haven't offered him any longer a Coots account.

It isn't a human right to have a Coots account.

I mean, by definition, none of you, I would imagine, or very, very, very, very few of you, and you listen to this, will have a Coots account.

It is an account for people with a lot of money.

Now, whether he just about had enough money, or maybe was just on the cusp of it, maybe that's up for debate.

But the reason, I mean, let's be honest, the reason why someone would want a Coots account, okay, he'd already had an account with them for a long time, so he probably wanted the consistency of it, I can totally understand that.

But the reason people want a private bank account like that is because Coots is an institution which can advise them, let's put it this way, on their tax affairs, they can advise them on how to make the most of their money.

They offer a whole suite of services that a normal bank, your average current account, whatever, does not offer you.

So the reason Farage is annoyed about this, I'm sure he's annoyed for other reasons, is because he's losing access to that, for whatever reason.

But it's not that he's not being given access to a bank account full stop.

That would clearly be completely inappropriate, because indeed, everybody in this country is entitled to a basic bank account.

This is a question about whether he's entitled to a very particular form of bank account, which also involves and gives you lots of advantages, let's put it that way.

But what Nigel Farage has been able to do with this whole saga is to create a sense of victimhood, persecution, which is a fantastic source of support for him and he's very Trumpian in the way he's done it and he's done it brilliantly and I think it's left Coots looking slightly exposed and trying to catch up with the narrative and the story and slightly failing.

And it has got the centre right of British politics, whether it be politicians or the media, salivating, coming to the defence and support of Nigel Farage.

Anyone who's watching this on the video version of it can see it.

The Daily Telegraph, the sort of august paper of Conservative record.

It's got Nigel Farage on the front with a big massive sort of red, almost blood-like circle around his face.

And the headline, NatWest Boss Under Pressure Over Farage Bank Scandal.

And it's not just the Daily Telegraph, you see it on the Express, the Mail, GB News, the kind of wider conservative ecosystem of opinion, absolutely up in arms about it.

Politicians up to and including the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Home Secretary down alongside a suite of Conservative MPs, all furious about it.

Now, you can have an argument and saying that, you know, the rules need to be changed and so on.

Now, you can have an argument about who is right, whether it's Coots or whether it's Farage.

But the very fact I can't think of, possibly with the exception of Boris Johnson, I cannot think of a political figure on the right of politics who could have such a profound impact and could, like the sort of Pied Piper of conservative politics, get everyone following them and dancing to his tune, up to and including talking about changing the law, changing regulations and so on.

And what it reminds me of, I mean, in a sense, this is not new.

Farage has been doing this to conservative politics for the last 10 years.

He's the most influential conservative with a small c figure on British politics, I think, since Thatcher, arguably, perhaps Boris Johnson as well.

And to me, it reminds us of the potential future this guy is going to have.

I mean, if there's a world where the Conservatives go into opposition after the election, and perhaps they're much reduced in number, and there's only a few hundred of them as MPs and so on, perhaps they're being led by someone like Zola Braverman, who knows, on the right of the party, this guy with the perch that he's got will continue to have extraordinary influence.

And what he does that is political genius or nightmarish, depending on your viewpoint, is that he plays this anti-establishment victim when no 1 is more establishment.

I mean, the guy went to Dulwich College, posh boy's public school.

He goes into the world of banking and trading, makes a lot of money.

They probably hang out bloody coots accounts at Dulwich College.

And there he is, portraying himself as the victim, just like Donald Trump does.

My apology was limited for not diminishing or denying that there was any political element to it.

There is another claim that he made that I think is absolute baloney, is the idea that this was some kind of establishment stitch-up, that the establishment, located probably somewhere in a bunker in Whitehall.

An anonymous civil servant has given an order, activate the anti-farage campaign.

going to have to apologise again, are we, John?

It's just the stuff of ridiculousness and conspiracy theory.

I think that probably, given how much shit publicity Nat West and Cootes have had as a result of this, they'd probably thought, oh my God, I wish we'd left this alone.

I wish we hadn't gone anywhere near his bank account.

So If it's an establishment plot, it has blown up in the establishment's face.

And also the idea of coots being part of...

I mean, let me read you what Suele Brotherman said yesterday.

And again, it's very much in that tone, that tone which afflicts so much of conservatism at the moment and centre-right thinking, which is this idea of constant persecution by whom, goodness knows, it's always a sort of vague, the blob, amorphous group always out to get them.

I mean, it's extraordinary, the level of paranoia and victimhood.

But Sweller Braverman tweeted yesterday, again, this is the Home Secretary folks, the Coutts scandal exposes the sinister nature of much of the diversity, equity and inclusion industry.

Kind of quite nice, but they got lovely sofas.

Apparently, anyone who wants to control our borders and stop the boats can be branded xenophobic and have their bank account closed in the name of inclusivity.

Coots Bank, like the Royal Families Bank.

I don't think that they are the centre and kind of fulcrum of the diversity, equity and inclusion industry.

You literally can't have a bank account with them unless you've got a million quid.

They're the opposite of the inclusion industry, whatever the hell that is.

And I think that what this speaks of is that increasingly fevered mindset, which is on parts of conservatism, conservative thinking over the last few years and Farage could be completely in the right, but as you say John, taking it 1 step further to talk about this idea of starting to link into a cancel culture and all this sort of stuff I think is a mistake.

Yeah and just we're talking about banking.

I mean the idea of banking as part of a socialist conspiracy against the world.

You know, in 2008, weren't they the bloodsuckers?

Weren't we going to help the bankers when everyone else was allowed to go to the wall, but for some reason, capitalism had to keep the bankers in their business.

It is just absurd, some of this fantasy politics.

And it's culture war stuff, that the idea that the banks are in the crosshairs of the culture war, again, it's just for the birds, it's fantasy land.

Well, we should probably get a sense of like the legality all of this.

So we can talk to Gary Rycroft, who's a consumer lawyer, partner at Joseph A Jones and county solicitor in Lancashire.

Gary, in terms of the legal position, has Coutts done anything wrong here?

Lewis, banks are private businesses who are perfectly entitled to make their own decision about who they want to do business with, but clearly we don't want them to make those decisions in a way which is arbitrary.

And they've got it coming at them from all angles really.

And in terms of their duties towards anti-money laundering organisations and in terms of their duties towards making sure that they aren't dealing with people who are so-called PEPs, they have a very high duty to ensure that they are behaving in a way that's ethical but is nevertheless making sure that they comply with the law.

So a PEP is a person who is a politically exposed person and that can be anyone from the mayor here in Lancaster where I live to the Prime Minister to the President of the United States.

It's a person who is politically active on a local, national or international level.

And the point is, if you're politically active, you're in a position of power.

And if you're in a position of power, people often want to influence you.

And that means that you are potentially subject to bribery or people paying you money in order for you to make decisions that are favorable to them.

So it doesn't mean that you can't give a bank account to a pep but it does mean you have to bring a higher level of due diligence to make sure you understand why that person has funds.

What's the source of their wealth and what's the source of their funds.

But with Nigel Farage, can you understand the process and the decision making that took place?

Because it's not just that he's politically active it seems, It was that he had xenophobic views or that he, you know, had contacts allegedly with Russians.

Is it fair to deny someone a bank account because of things like that?

Because then surely it's open season on anyone whose views you don't like, whether they are from the right or from the left.

Well I think there's 2 things going on there, John.

1 is the issue of the PEP and what that actually means.

So if you're a PEP, it means that you are at a greater risk to the business that you want to do business with.

Now that business can take a view whether they want to do business with you or not, but let's not forget that banks, people in financial services and dare I say law firms, people like myself as lawyers, we are told by the government you've got to know what your clients are doing and ultimately there are potential criminal sanctions if your clients do something nefarious and you've let that happen on your watch.

So if you're wanting to de-risk your business you will just remove from your book people who have a potential risk to you.

The second issue that I think you're alluding to John is the issue of someone's views.

Now we don't want people to have the thought police actually deciding whether you should have a bank account or not.

But another aspect of this is that many businesses, particularly in the financial services sector, are being told by their customers, we want you to behave in a way that's ethical.

We will only do business with you if you align with our ethical views and there's things called the ESG targets which are about environmental sustainability and governance targets and businesses have increasingly been told by their customers we want you to comply with that So there is an issue that if someone has views that are not complying with the SG that they might not be allowed to do business with that particular bank, law firm or whoever.

But just to be clear Gary, Coutts as far as you can see They haven't acted improperly, they've acted according to the regulations which exist.

Courts are existing in a very complex regulatory framework, and as far as I can see, they are complying with their regulatory obligations.

Mr Farage is kicking up a bit of a stink about all that.

And what I'd say to him is, well, why don't you publish everything?

Don't just edit the bits that you want people to see, but let's just see full disclosure.

You can redact bits that you might think are confidential that put you at risk from fraud or something like that.

But let's see everything, and then people can take a view on whether something unfair has happened or not.

But Coutts haven't exactly been transparent, have they?

Because the story that he didn't have enough funds in his bank account apparently came from a senior source that spoke to the BBC's business editor, and he reported it was simply a matter that he didn't have enough money in his account to warrant a Coutts private bank account.

And we now know that it was more complicated than that.

Yeah, well, as I say, Coutts are operating in a complex regulatory framework and they have different rules about whether you can have an account or not.

I'm sure they have discretion about that particular point as they have discretion about the other points I've been talking about with regard to taking a view on whether someone is a risk or not.

But perhaps sometimes, and I have no inside information whatsoever about the decision that's been made by Goops, but perhaps sometimes there's just a perfect storm of various factors that come together and together, cumulatively, they raise a red flag, which means that you want to de-risk your business and actually decide sadly that you no longer want to conduct business with that particular individual or organisation.

going to talk about Cootes a bit because I think we've talked about Farage and I think it's quite like you, John, I've always been quite ambivalent about Farage.

I spent a lot of time with him during the Brexit party years, spent a lot of time sort of talking to him.

And I actually think he's a very interesting politician and a very influential 1, as I say, and certainly 1 of the most charismatic politicians that I've ever seen.

Cootes themselves are hardly, I think, they're not exactly going to be blameless about this thing.

And I think there is 1 kind of ethical tension at the very heart of their position, which is, like, let's be frank here, Nigel Farage, if they've removed Farage partly because not so much just about his politics, but they think he's potentially controversial and that he's a bit of a risk to them reputationally, Farage, not by a long, long way, is going to be the most controversial person on their books.

They are going to have people who are very, very complicated and have complicated histories and complicated financial affairs.

And so the truth of what's happened here, and this is what Cootes would have to reckon with, the truth is if Farage had more money they would probably have kept him.

And so to basically say, well we're concerned about our ethics and our reputation up to a point Lord Copper, basically kind of stinks as a position.

There was an extraordinary story in the Sunday Times from a journalist who we featured on the podcast before, Gabriel Pogrund, about a guy who gets given 3 million euros in cash, which then gets put into his Coots bank account.

Now there's no suggestion of any illegality there.

It was given to him by a Middle Eastern potentate from the Gulf region.

It's just that the person in question who received the 3000000 in the plastic bags was 1 Prince Charles, future king of England.

Did Coots Bank say to him, sorry, we can't cash this because of money laundering regulations?

Right, coming up next, we're going to talk about a man who's also having to manage his reputation a little bit.

And that is Tobias Elwood, the Conservative MP and chair of the Defence Select Committee, who has basically decided to have a trip to Afghanistan that no 1 can understand.

Tobias Ellwood, he is the chair of the Commons Defence Select Committee.

Free-thinking, independent-minded, who has just been to Afghanistan and posted a video that sort of wouldn't feel out of place on a holiday program.

It was so reassuring about what a great place.

I'm here back in Helmand province in Afghanistan, courtesy of the HALO Trust.

All that's happened here since 9-11, This is a very different country in deal.

It feels different now that the Taliban have returned to power.

Well it may be hard to believe but security has vastly improved, corruption is down and the opium trade has all but disappeared.

You quickly appreciate this war-weary nation is for the moment accepting a more authoritarian leadership in exchange for stability.

Well here in Kibble the streets are relatively safe, The checkpoints have all gone, businesses are reopening, the economy is starting to function.

Our British embassy, it just threw those gates over there.

There is a calm though to the country that local elders say they've not experienced since the 1970s.

That's how long ordinary Afghans have experienced war.

So do we shout from afar and risk another era of instability, a rise in terrorism and mass migration?

If the EU embassy can open up, so can ours.

And incrementally, we can encourage the progressive changes to the economy and critically, for girls education and female workers that we all want to see.

Well, I depart Afghanistan with a better appreciation as to how we can help this vulnerable country that feels abandoned by the international community.

It is time to re-engage and Britain should lead the way.

With News Agents Holidays, we're offering weekend away breaks to Kabul.

It's the best place to go for a short snappy holiday.

You'd have to say that he is offering a very lopsided view of what has happened to Afghanistan since the Taliban returned.

Well, yeah, indeed there's a famine there.

I mean, the Taliban would say, well, that's partly because the West isn't allowing food imports or food donations, I should say.

But nonetheless, I mean, there's clearly been a horrendous humanitarian situation in Afghanistan.

And this is leading to domestic political problems for Elwood himself, because like I say, he is the chair of the Defence Select Committee.

And now, having been seen there, and this was a sort of charity trip to Afghanistan with the Halo Trust.

The Conservatives or other members of the committee are basically trying now to overthrow him as chair.

So 4 members of the Commons Defence Committee have tabled a motion of no confidence in Elwood, including Labour MPs Kevin Jones and Derek Twigg, alongside Conservative MPs Mark Francois and Richard Drax, with Jones saying this isn't the first time that Tobias Elwood has made statements which don't reflect the committee's stance.

He appeared also on Talk TV's Piers Morgan show.

I step forward on many occasions and say things perhaps which other MPs won't say.

And occasionally yes I say things the wrong way.

Because of Twitter a storm then comes about about it and I have to deal with it.

The last couple of days have probably been the most miserable as a member of Parliament.

I don't know how many times you would like me to say that.

Will you do that immediately this interview is over?

Because that would indicate you genuinely are remorseful.

So just some more figures in terms of the actual situation in Afghanistan.

According to the UN there's been a thousand and ninety-five civilian deaths since August 2021.

As of late June over 3, 700 civilian casualties so woundings and so on.

Elwood's always been a bit of a live wire.

Yeah, that's maybe a bit generous, but yeah, Maverick.

He's not especially popular on the Conservative back benches for lots of different reasons.

He's framing it there that this is something that others won't say.

I mean, I suppose if you were to take a step back on it, it is absolutely true to say clearly that video was absurd, and it was just completely inappropriate, and the tone was completely wrong.

I suppose what you can say is that it is true that the Western occupation of Afghanistan had failed.

We know that it had failed completely because of the manner of the withdrawal, that it collapsed, the regime collapsed instantly.

Contrast that with somewhere like Ukraine, for example, which is clearly a viable state fighting for its freedom, different situations.

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Why is Nigel Farage at war with his bank?