Journalist Peter Oborne has questioned the disproportionate MP and media attention paid to Nigel Farage’s recent banking fiasco.
City minister Andrew Griffith has written to the UK’s financial watchdog urging it to prioritise an “important” review into whether people are being denied bank accounts due to their political views.
It follows claims by former Brexit Party leader Farage that his bank account had been shut down without justification and he had been refused services by several banks.
But as Oborne points out, banks have been closing accounts deemed outside their ‘risk appetite’ for decades.
In 2014 it was revealed that HSBC had closed several accounts with Muslim clients, including the Finsbury Park Mosque, for similar reasons to the ones the former UKIPer is citing.
In an interview given to the BBC, one of the Mosque trustees accused the bank of an Islamophobic campaign targeting Muslim charities.
Furthermore, the chief executive of the Cordoba foundation lost his bank account along with his family members losing their bank accounts as well, with no explanation given.
Farage has compared Britain to communist China after his bank account was closed and went as far as to say he “won’t be able to exist or function” without a bank account.
Yet while little attention was paid to the plight of British Muslims, Farage has had his story plastered all over the media and has ‘won’ his battle as the government is now reviewing the EU policies.
Osborne, who has been campaigning for the stories of British Muslims to be heard, has produced this vital YouTube video for Double Down News.
Femi Oluwole also discussed the matter in an interview with The London Economic.
Here’s what he had to say:
Related: MPs threaten to use parliamentary privilege to unveil BBC presenter in Commons
