WhatsApps Show GB News Host Nigel Farage Asked Tory Minister To Help With NatWest ‘De-Banking’
Nigel Farage, when Member of the Brexit Party, during a television recording in the European Parliament, outside the Chamber. Photo by: Philipp von Ditfurth/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
GB News host Nigel Farage, former Brexit party leader, lobbied Tory minister Andrew Griffith for advice on how to handle his complaint against NatWest bank over closure of his accounts.
Farage’s midnight pleas to Griffith, then economic secretary to the Treasury, were revealed by the Guardian following a Freedom of Information Act request that turned up screenshotted WhatsApp messages between the two.
It appears that Farage contacted Griffith over WhatsApp, seeking guidance on his legal stance against NatWest, which he accused of closing his accounts due to political bias.
“Be keen to discuss my legal position with you before I go public on this,” Farage wrote.
WhatsApp messages sent by Nigel Farage to Andrew Griffith, then economic secretary to the Treasury, released after a Guardian freedom of information request. (Screengrab via The Guardian/guardian.co.uk)
The Treasury confirmed a call did take place with a civil servant present, yet Griffith’s responses remain shrouded in mystery, as none of the minister’s WhatsApps appeared in the released information. With no messages on government records, Guardian political correspondent Ben Quinn suggests that Griffith appears to be using the app’s disappearing messages feature.
This scandal took a turn when Griffith summoned top UK bank executives, sparking a chain of events that saw NatWest’s CEO Alison Rose resign after admitting to discussing Farage with a BBC journalist. The financial regulator, however, found no evidence of political bias in the bank’s actions.
Emily Thornberry, shadow attorney general, slammed Farage and Griffith for “secretly conspiring behind the scenes.”
Farage, now a GB News presenter, lauded Griffith’s role and told the newspaper: “I reached out to him to say I had a major problem. On a confidential basis I just informed him of the problems I was having, because I couldn’t get a bank account anywhere.”
Griffith, currently a science minister, also defended his actions: “The FoI disclosure shows faithfully what happened which is that I was made aware that Mr Farage had a banking issue, I called him in the
presence of my private secretary, a note of that conversation was quite correctly recorded for the files and that has been disclosed upon the Guardian’s request.”
The minister recalled a similar issue faced by The Spectator’s associate editor Toby Young of the Free Speech Union, emphasising the government’s commitment to tackling de-banking.
