Nigel Farage, Coutts and the small boats

I don’t like Nigel Farage’s politics. But I have to hand it to him. His assault which brought Coutts and its parent company NatWest to heel was impressive. He is now in talks to recover his account at Coutts. Well done him. One in the eye for the establishment.

Of course, Farage is a master of opportunity and he seized this one with both hands. The pied piper of Brexit retains a formidable hold on this feeble Tory government, which fears being outflanked by the even-further-right.

Political pressure was piled onto NatWest (39% owned by the state) once the story broke. The tumbrils were wheeled out. Heads rolled.

But I don’t doubt that Farage was genuinely furious at a decision which smacked, at the very least of poor judgement, and at worst of English establishment hypocrisy. His sense of grievance was palpable, shared by many not least ordinary citizens refused a bank account without an explanation.

Coutts dumped Farage because it didn’t like his politics or his “values” – the cut of his jib. Mud flung at him as a “politically exposed person” could end up sticking to the bank, its internal reasoning argued.

And yet Coutts offers its services to Putin-friendly Russian oligarchs and Saudi billionaires with links to a regime with blood on its hands. Do they rank higher or lower on the aversion risk index than Farage?

Our civil liberties matter. They really do. What business are my political views to a commercial enterprise, provided I’m not breaking the law or fomenting civil strife? Equally, my views on Brexit are irrelevant to Farage’s treatment by a toffee-nosed financial institution.

But here’s the rub: the same principle that protects Farage’s right to be treated fairly and equally by his bank (founded in international law) also applies to our core freedoms as citizens: freedom of expression, assembly, protest and religion.

Freedom is not absolute. Society needs boundaries. But in a society that values freedom the starting point must be that it is the bedrock.

The impulse to exclude or to control springs from the same place. And it is not necessarily politically tinted. Tony Blair’s New Labour administration embarked on a relentless assault on civil liberties in the early part of this century, partly in response to the rising threat of terrorism after 9/11. Police powers were vastly expanded. Stop and search extended. Detention without trial was introduced, with little obvious effect on Britain’s security.

This Conservative Government has picked up where Blair left off. Creeping authoritarianism seems second nature to it — personified by Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who is permanently on next leadership election manoeuvres.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 restricts the right to protest (noisily) and in some cases silently, as we witnessed at the coronation of King Charles III. You can now be arrested (and some have been) for carrying a bike lock within walking distance of a demo.

The introduction of voter ID mandates, ostensibly to crack down on tiny amounts of electoral fraud, will inevitably disenfranchise thousands. Lawyers and judges are labelled activists if they frustrate the will of the executive. It may be the law, but it’s not justice.

Former Brexit Secretary David Davies, another Tory whose politics I don’t much care for but whose stand on civil liberties I admire, has been a vocal opponent of measures to restrict the right to peaceful protest. He calls the voter ID policy an “illiberal idea in pursuit of a non-existent problem.”

In a Times op-ed in 2022 he made this point: “Every law we write must be written on the presumption that it will be a government very unlike ours who will be in charge at some point in the future.” This doesn’t play well with the mouthy new intake of politicians gripped by the 24-hour news cycle.

Those who are fond of parsing arguments about civil liberties like to draw a distinction between civil liberties (a principle) and civil rights (pursuing those liberties by litigation, advocacy or protest). It’s a convenient fig-leaf but it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. What’s the point of a principle if it doesn’t work out in practice?

I’d go further. If we believe in the principles of fairness, justice and equality for all, we could ask ourselves the following (difficult) question: what really is the difference between Nigel Farage being blackballed by Coutts behind a veil of genteel secrecy and an asylum seeker being summarily deported without their case being heard?

Britain, like many other countries, faces a serious challenge with refugees. Some who seek asylum are economic migrants. But, like Farage, asylum seekers and refugees are entitled to due process and a fair hearing.

Rishi Sunak faces a potentially serious defeat at the next general election. Devoid of serious ideas, he has chosen to plant his flag on this fertile ground: resentment of asylum seekers, Just Stop Oil protesters and other activists who make a nuisance of themselves and upset people. They are politically useful scapegoats.

The issue of civil disobedience (and by definition civil liberties) was aired in 2006 — a time when reason still held sway. (The case involved damage done to UK military installations by opponents of the Iraq War.) The senior judge Lord Hoffman said at the time: “Civil disobedience on conscientious grounds has a long and honourable history in this country. The suffragettes are an example.” Protestors block roads. They get prosecuted and some get sent to jail. That, as Lord Hoffman said, is the unspoken bargain which both sides accept.

Farage’s spat with a posh bank and the assault on our civil liberties are not, on the face of it, morally equivalent. This cheerful, pint-quaffing, demagogue, scourge of asylum seekers, is not an obvious icon for the human rights movement or the European Convention on Human Rights. (Nothing, incidentally, to do with the EU.)

But if he’s entitled to fair play, so are the rest of us — including those landing on our shores in small boats.

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