- By Katie Razzall and Emma Saunders
- Culture and media editor and culture reporter
Jul 24, 2023 at 4:22 p.m. BST
Updated 1 minute ago
Image source: Getty Images
The BBC has apologized to Nigel Farage for the inaccurate account of why his Coutts Bank account was closed.
On July 4, the BBC, citing a source familiar with the matter, reported that Mr Farage was no longer meeting Coutts’ financial requirements.
The former UKIP leader later received a report from Coutts which indicated his political views were also taken into account.
He thanked BBC boss Deborah Turness, who wrote to him, and business editor Simon Jack for their apologies.
“It’s not often that the BBC apologizes. But I’m delighted that the BBC is apologizing,” Farage said.
“Jack says in the tweet that his information came from a trusted and senior source. I would guess that it could very well be a very high profile source. More on that later,” he added.
“However, the information turned out to be incomplete and inaccurate. So I would like to apologize to Mr Farage,” continued Mr Jack.
When Coutts, which is owned by NatWest, decided to close Mr Farage’s account, he said it gave him no reason.
At the time, Mr Farage told Radio 4 the BBC had been taken in by “Spin” and that he had been “cancelled” because of his political views.
Mr Farage then received a document verifying his eligibility as a Coutts customer.
The 40-page document provided to Mr Farage included the minutes of a meeting in November last year at which his account was reviewed.
The document raised concerns that he was “xenophobic and racist” and also raised concerns about the reputational risk that comes with Mr Farage as a client.
It mentioned Mr Farage’s retweet of a joke by Ricky Gervais about trans women and his friendship with tennis player Novak Djokovic, who is against Covid vaccinations.
Several other examples were cited, including his comparison of Black Lives Matter protesters to the Taliban and his characterization of the RNLI as a “taxi service” for illegal immigrants.
It said that having Mr Farage as a client was inconsistent with Coutts’ “position as an inclusive organization” given his “publicly expressed views”.
NatWest Group boss Dame Alison Rose then apologized to Mr Farage for what she called “deeply inappropriate” comments.
She also said she would commission a full review of Coutts’ bank account closure processes.
Mr Farage has called for Dame Alison to be questioned by MPs.
The Treasury Department has also called a meeting with bank bosses over account closures following the dispute between Mr Farage and NatWest, which owns Coutts.
The BBC hopes their apology will put an end to the story.
The journalist behind the report was given misleading information from a source he trusted. This source said the policy had nothing to do with the bank’s decision-making process and that Mr Farage’s account would only be closed for commercial reasons.
The result is a glimpse into a central tenet of journalism – sourcing stories. Reporters need to be able to trust their sources (and it’s standard journalistic practice not to reveal who they are).
In this case, that trust has collapsed.