Bank of England boss Andrew Bailey is accused of standing by while Barclays ‘debanked’ a key Brexit supporter

• Arron Banks claims Barclays closed accounts because of his support for Brexit

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey has been dragged into the row over the ‘debanking’ of Nigel Farage after another leading Brexiteer revealed how he had been shut out by a major high street bank.

Arron Banks, who campaigned with Mr Farage to leave the EU, claims Barclays closed his accounts because of his support for Brexit – leaving the motoring customers of his insurance company at risk of being left without cover.

At the height of the drama – which took place after Mr Banks and Mr Farage met then-US President Donald Trump on a high-profile visit to America – Mr Banks says Mr Bailey, then chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority, was informed about Barclays’ actions.

Mr Banks says he kept the 2018 incident quiet out of fear other banks would also refuse his custom – but has been emboldened by the furore surrounding the cancellation of Mr Farage’s Coutts account.

Dame Alison Rose was forced to resign as chief executive of Coutts’s parent bank, NatWest, last week after it emerged that she had falsely briefed the BBC that he had been ‘debanked’ for financial reasons – when in reality it was because of his political views.

Mr Banks, who built an estimated £100 million fortune from businesses such as the GoSkippy insurance brand, said he was told he was being debanked in November 2018 when he was visited by a senior Barclays manager, who delivered 27 white envelopes containing letters of termination, which said that his accounts would cease to operate in 90 days.

Mr Banks, who donated £8 million to Leave.Eu, said it included the account used by Eldon Insurance, which includes GoSkippy and at the time had 500,000 policy holders and an annual turnover approaching £300 million.

He said that accounts held by his ex-wife and other family members were also targeted, including one held by his brother’s law firm, and that the bank ‘called in all loans and facilities I had with them after 20 years of blemish free banking’.

The closures even affected a bank on the Isle of Man in which Mr Banks held a 28 per cent stake.

The businessman said that the following year Barclays instructed Barclaycard to cancel the services it provided for Eldon Insurance, meaning customers were unable to pay their premiums and were left uninsured on the road.

The card services were only restored following furious protests to Barclays.

Mr Banks says Mr Bailey was made aware of the debanking when he met Sir Mark Boleat, Eldon’s chairman, at the annual City Banquet in Mansion House on 24 October that year.

In an email to Mr Banks, sent the following day, Sir Mark said he was ‘chatting about this’ to Mr Bailey and ‘mentioned our problem’. He wrote: ‘Unprompted, he said there was concern about decision-taking in Barclays.’

Sir Mark added he had been seated at the dinner next to Mark Steward, then Mr Bailey’s Executive Director Enforcement and Oversight at the FCA, who Sir Mark said ‘knew without prompting’ about the ‘debanking’ which indicated that ‘top people in the FCA have been closely following Eldon’, adding that he ‘got the impression we might be able to use the FCA’.

Mr Banks then wrote to Sir Ian Cheshire, who was the Barclays chairman, to complain about his treatment, writing: ‘I wanted to make sure that even if Barclays hate me, they understood the difficulties in destroying a direct insurance company with half a million retail customers.’

Andy Wigmore, who was the director of communications for Leave.EU, Mr Farage and Mr Banks’s campaign group, also reveals that he was ‘debanked’ by NatWest.

Mr Wigmore told The Mail on Sunday: ‘NatWest cancelled me my wife and even my kids last year. They froze my assets and then without notice killed our accounts.

‘The banks went for us based on our politics.

‘It is a full-on persecution of Brexit players. I couldn’t get another account for six months, and even then not in my name.’

Mr Banks said: ‘As a high- profile player in the Brexit campaign, I have been targeted by banks and regulators and many other organisations.

‘It was my view at the time that Barclays had debanked my accounts for political reasons, and the recent Coutts scandal has shed new light on the whole banking sector. Eldon Insurance was a highly regulated insurance business. Barclays took the business to the brink of destruction, which was utterly disgraceful behaviour.

‘It is clear that the Financial Conduct Authority knew about of the issue of debanking people on their political views and Andrew Bailey has questions to answer on why he did nothing.

‘The City and FCA run a system of blackballing people they don’t like. We know big organisations such as Barclays donated cash to the Remain campaign.

‘My only crime was backing Brexit, which I would do again in a heartbeat – but it came at a heavy price.’

A Barclays spokesman said: ‘While we cannot comment on individual accounts, we comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. We would only withdraw banking services from an individual or business in exceptional circumstances.’

A spokesman for Mr Bailey declined to comment.