DustyBin
Established Member
My bad regarding fox hunting; I wasn’t aware that it was banned completely and that this was something different.
I completely agree with you about the latest shooting example.
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Nigel Farage and that bank account...
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My bad regarding fox hunting; I wasn’t aware that it was banned completely and that this was something different.
I completely agree with you about the latest shooting example.
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RailUK Forums
To be fair, many hunts continue to chase and kill live animals when they can get away with it. Naturally this is always blamed on a few ‘bad apples’.My bad regarding fox hunting; I wasn’t aware that it was banned completely and that this was something different.
The law provides for unlimited fines for people who break the provisions of the Hunting Act 2004.
However this can only happen after someone has been charged and convicted after a fair trial which considers all the evidence.
You should not be penalising people just because they might be tempted to break the law.
The issue here is that financial institutions are effectively punishing people (by withdrawing banking and payment services) for being involved in perfectly legal activities that they disapprove of.
Are banks private enterprises, or social ones? Forcing a private business to accept custom regardless of the company’s own wishes seems a very authoritarian approach to me.
Edit: which brings me back to the point I made up-thread. Given that at least a basic bank account is a necessity, which I don’t dispute, the State should act as provider of last resort, ensuring that all the paedophiles, shooters and animal hunters - and Nigel Farage - can get an account.
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Banks are private enterprises I believe.
Therefore why should a vegan web-hosting/development company be allowed to refuse to work for a animal hunting society when a bank cannot?
I personally have no issue with a bank choosing their "business" customers based on their own set of criteria. In fact, I have a feeling that my own employer does look at our potential clients' own values to see if they align before we commence working with them - should that not be allowed in this "Banks must provide an account for everybody" world that some people want to live in?
Therefore why should a vegan web-hosting/development company be allowed to refuse to work for a animal hunting society when a bank cannot?
I personally have no issue with a bank choosing their "business" customers based on their own set of criteria. In fact, I have a feeling that my own employer does look at our potential clients' own values to see if they align before we commence working with them - should that not be allowed in this "Banks must provide an account for everybody" world that some people want to live in?
Well, Natwest for one is almost 40% owned by the government, because of the terrible decisions it made in the runup to 2008. Taxes, including those paid by all those 'awful' people it doesn't now want to deal with, kept it alive.
But putting that apart, would you apply the same argument to an electricity or water company?
Killingworth
Established Member
Defence contractors and oil industries are becoming targets. Bankers may become reluctant to handle their accounts before long. As I've implied earlier this has a long way to run.
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Why not? I see no reason why "Solar Power UK Limited" would want to supply power to the offices of "UK Coal Production" and I don't see why they should be forced to?
So the coal company should go out of business because it can't find anyone willing to supply it with electricity?
Denying banking services on the basis of an arbitary set of criteria is also a very authoritarian approach.
If you allow this to proliferate, then over time a Chinese style social credit system evolves where certain groups of people have to put up with either a basic bank account, or no bank account at all, whereas everyone else can have access to a full range of financial services.
Water (in England & Wales), gas and electricity are all provided by private companies.
Water, gas and electricity companies are not allowed (as far as I am aware) to refuse to provide services to anyone just because they "don't align with our values" or because the company disapproves of the perfectly lawful activity that the person is involved with, or the perfectly lawful opinion that the person holds.
In todays increasingly cashless society, access to banking and financial services is fast becoming an essential utility, as indeed is access to the internet.
Provision of banking and financial services, as well as access to the internet, should be treated in the same way as the supply of gas, electricity and water and designated an essential utility.
Companies supplying these services should be prohibited in law from refusing to provide services to people on the basis of political opinion or lawful business or personal activity.
There are already many different types of bank account, some of which are only available to people who pay a monthly fee and have £xxxx paid in per month. Then when it comes to loans, overdrafts, credit cards, mortgages etc it will come down to a credit check to determine the rates - with more affluent people paying much less.
Ditto, on savings accounts you may earn more interest if you have savings over a certain amount that many of us will never have as savings in our whole lives.
I see a lot of fear about us having this Chinese social credit system imposed on us (despite no evidence of our incompetent Government ever being able to do it) but in many cases, we already have much of it happening in our everyday lives anyway and always have.
His business accounts. Again, businesses aren't people and don't have the same right to basic banking services.
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Clearly, not everyone agrees:
Well businesses and organisations are run by people, and they employ people, and they should have the same rights to basic banking services as are given to private individuals.
The fact that businesses are not afforded the same protection as private individuals is an anomaly which the Nigel Farage debanking affair has uncovered, and it needs legislation to put this right.
As I said earlier, banking and internet services are effectively essential utilities these days, and need to be treated as such.
This thread does appear to be going in circles.
Yes, people should have the right to a bank account (which they do, but it remains to be seen whether this has been followed in practice, or whether the banks have faced any repercussions if there are cases where they haven't followed this).
Yes, businesses should too. It is a preposterous idea that a legal business shouldn't be able to operate because banks feel it doesn't fit with their image or their following of ESG criteria.
Whether that requires the major banks to have the same safeguards as utility companies, or requires a government 'bank of last resort', at least one of those two things needs to be done.
That is a matter for the legislators, methinks.
DustyBin
Established Member
It's slightly different though. There are any number of activities that may provide the opportunity to break the law if a nefarious individual is so inclined. In the example we discussed, my assertion was that the very nature of the business would soon find it deemed illegal, even if it wasn't at the outset.
But (a) Why the assumption that they would inevitably engage in illegal activity, and (b) surely it goes against every principle of common law that one cannot be penalised for a crime that you haven't yet committed?
DerekC
Established Member
It strikes me that this is a huge "anti-woke" balloon inflated by Nigel Farage and supported by the usual gang - Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, Dame Priti Patel, the Express, the Mail and the Telegraph and all the rest - inflated by hot air and with very little evidence to back it up. How many hunts have lost their account? Which other banks have they tried? Is this really a lefty conspiracy?
The real problem is, I think, that banks have become so risk averse and so constipated by security legislation that they find it difficult to do anything other than turn the handle on standard accounts. In the past five years, every time I have tried to change anything at all (for example adding a new signatory) in the three non-personal accounts I look after (a charity, a partnership and a very small community company) it has taken months each time, loads of phone calls, endless forms and several visits to branches to prove my identity. And as for switching banks to save money - I tried it for the charity and gave up after trying four other banks, all of whom advertised their "easy to use" services for small businesses and charities. If I were Nigel Farage I could easily imagine a conspiracy.
The real problem is, I think, that banks have become so risk averse and so constipated by security legislation that they find it difficult to do anything other than turn the handle on standard accounts. In the past five years, every time I have tried to change anything at all (for example adding a new signatory) in the three non-personal accounts I look after (a charity, a partnership and a very small community company) it has taken months each time, loads of phone calls, endless forms and several visits to branches to prove my identity. And as for switching banks to save money - I tried it for the charity and gave up after trying four other banks, all of whom advertised their "easy to use" services for small businesses and charities. If I were Nigel Farage I could easily imagine a conspiracy.
DustyBin
Established Member
Because (a) the establishment and promotion of such a business is likely to be an offence. Although a grey area, it’s enough for the bank to say “no” on more than just “moral” grounds in my view. That renders (b) a moot point (although correct in itself).
Going by one of the original meanings of "woke" which is being awake to discrimination, I would describe all those calling for businesses to have the right to a bank account as being "woke" rather than "anti-woke".
DerekC
Established Member
But that can't mean that all banks must open an account for any business that applies. It's extremely easy to open a limited company. Any bank account (personal or business) represents some degree of risk to the bank and as a commercial organisation it needs to have the freedom to decide which accounts to accept and which not. And it's very hard to see how legislation aiming to limit that freedom to commercial criteria could work - because risk overlaps into the legal and - like it or not- political area too. Legal and political overlap in the area of terrorism, to pick the obvious example. And some people see some legislation (e.g. hunting) as political. The probability is that the government will pass something half-baked (they have a strong track record) pushed by Farage & Co.
Very tricky. I can't see the government setting up a "Bank of Last Resort" - it sounds socialist. So they will do something half baked - see above.
I agree that it is easy to say that banks should not refuse business accounts, but more difficult to find a legal way of saying and enforcing that.
However you can turn it on the head and say banks cannot refuse any business accounts for legal purposes, and the moment the business does something illegal (as found by a Court), then the right to a bank account is removed. (This may help businesses and organisations stay on the right side of the law as well!)
And if a green bank has a policy of not working with, for example, the fossil fuel industry and only promoting renewable energy would they be required to open a bank account for Royal Dutch Shell?
That is an excellent point. "Freedom for all, except when it affects me."
Except anyone can bake a cake. Few people can easily set up a bank.
The numbers don't matter. Either businesses are free to choose who they want to do business with or they aren't.
The numbers do matter. There are more bakers than banks, such that the chances are that you will find a baker willing to make your cake. With few banks to chose from, the chances of finding a bank that will accept your views are much smaller.
Suppose there are 100,000 bakers and 1,000 banks. If only 1 person in 10,000 agrees with your views, there will be 10 bakers willing to bake your cake, but only 0.1 bank (i..e. no bank) willing to take you on as a customer.
Further, if push comes to shove, you could make your own cake; you can't 'make' your own bank.
Way to ignore the point. So, here we go: are businesses allowed to choose who they do business with or not?
Nigel argued that they are in the baker case, so why doesn't the same principle apply to a business that chooses not to do business with him?
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