NatWoke: How banks use identity politics to launder their public image
NatWest's apology to Nigel Farage is a defining moment for corporate capitalism and the left who support it
NatWest's abject apology to Nigel Farage has moved this story way beyond the normal Twitter spat, and raised serious questions about the conduct of the UK banking system. Even people who accepted NatWest's initial claim that Farage was cancelled by Coutts, a subsidiary of NatWest, on “commercial grounds”, like the financial commentator and former TSB exec, Philip Augur, now accept Farage's account that he was cancelled because he did not conform to Coutt’s “values” (see my previous post on NatWest dossier.) This is the bank, remember, that was happy to bank dictators like Augusto Pinochet of Chile and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt as well as countless oligarchs and plutocrats.
NatWest still tried to claim Farage’s blackballing arose from a combination of reasons including the former Brexit Party leader’s political views and the state of his accounts. But as Augur told BBC’s Today programme there should never be any question of a financial utility using any political criteria when deciding who is fit to bank. He says that the boss of NatWest, Dame Alison Rose, will have to resign unless she can show she really didn’t know what was going on. “You can’t have what is essentially a utility industry deciding who will say what and who is free to give political opinions”, said Augur, “It strikes at the core of democracy”. (In my view, if she didn’t know, that is all the more reason for her to resign.)
This is developing into a crisis for the banking sector as a whole. Thousands of people are now reporting that they have been “debanked” and are submitting subject interest requests to their banks. As I pointed out in my last post, ones immediately in the frame include First Direct and Yorkshire Building Society. Subject interest requests (SIR) are becoming the new freedom of information requests. Companies are required under the 2018 Data Act to reveal what information they hold on you. A handy guide to how to make a free SIR is provided by Which. City of London shredding machines are no doubt running red hot as we speak.
As I also pointed out yesterday, Coutts is owned by NatWest Group, the bank formerly known as Royal Bank of Scotland, based in Gogarburn Edinburgh. It changed its name in 2020, largely because it wanted to escape the opprobrium RBS had attracted for being the “worst bank in the world” and a major contributor to the 2008-10 financial crisis.
RBS had run up a dodgy balance sheet worth more than the annual GDP of the UK by reckless lending practices and buyouts under its boss Fred “the shred” Goodwin. It had to be bailed out with £45 billion of taxpayer’s money and it is still 40% state owned. RBS/NatWest Group now has the temerity to decide which of these taxpayers to grace with a bank account.
Which brings me to the further dimension to this story that I mentioned yesterday. How did it come to pass that the left would leap to the defence of a financial institution like this even when it was becoming clear that it was behaving like financial Stazi? And leap they did, not just on social media. Commentators like the former BBC economics editor, Paul Mason, fell over themselves to defend Coutts insisting that it had not judged Farage for his political views and even recycling baseless rumours about his finances. So far as I know, no apology has emerged from Mr Mason. He is a former supporter of Jeremy Corbyn and is the author of books with titles like “Meltdown: the End of the Age of Greed”. NatWest’s Alison Rose earns £5 million a year - the age of irony is officially dead.
NatWest/RBS is a prime example of how corporate capitalism has used identity politics to remake its image. NatWest was bedecked with rainbows and LGBT flags during Pride Month. It has promoted transgender politics and is a big supporter of Black History Month. Alison Rose is a conspicuous enthusiast for the new holy trinity of Diversity Equality Inclusion, DEI, which she says, in all seriousness, is the core of NatWest’s mission.
That it should be so easy to co-opt the left by this public relations exercise shows how far it has strayed from its original mission of challenging class politics and capitalist exploitation. It is hard to think of any institution more rapacious, more reckless, more bonus-driven and plutocratic than this particular bank. Yet as if by magic it has become a cause worth defending. It’s like Karl Marx backing the Rockefellers.
And nothing better illustrates the transformation of elite politics in Western democracies than the extraordinary behaviour of this quintessentially establishment institution: Coutts. This is THE bank of the establishment – the bank of royalty and the international plutocracy. You have to be a millionaire just to open an account. It is now ostracising people for having conservative views. This is not how it is used to be.
Now, I don't subscribe to the view of the commentator Professor Matt Goodwin that we are now ruled by is a new supposedly “woke” ruling class: a New Elite. In my view it is largely the old elite wearing new clothes ( though he’s right that the academic and media intelligentsia has become addicted to identity politics). In the 2020s the corporate elite has conducted a ruthless exercise in what might be called cultural appropriation of formerly leftist themes and tropes and turned them into a dubiously quantifiable measure of moral worth called ESG - Environment Social Governance.
Companies vie to be are awarded scores for just how much they subscribe to these new age corporate values of diversity, equality and inclusion. This is the leading edge of capitalist woke washing. On the current ESG hot one hundred, British American Tobacco, indirectly responsible for 8 million or so deaths from smoking, is near the top of the table - far in advance of companies like the electric vehicle company, Tesla.
That the left appear to buy into all this nonsense might seem bizarre. That tobacco companies can become woke superstars should be enough for anyone with sense to see what is going on. But this DEI scam works. The civil service, military, universities and schools are all desperately trying to attract the support of transgender lobby groups like Stonewall. Contradict the tenets of ESG and you risk defenestration. It is a remarkable change.
People of my generation remember that it was people of the left, like Paul Mason, who were subject to cancellation, job bans or other forms of elite prejudice. The BBC used vet it’s employees for having left wing views, now it acts as a willing conduit for NatWest spin. Which reminds me about how I became aware the infamous Christmas Tree files when I joined the BBC in the 1980s. More on that anon. For now, the next time you see “alternative” comedians doing adverts for banks even as they attack people like Nigel Farage, just ask youself: who exactly are the good guys here?
You have identified here something which I began to notice in the past year or so: The whole point of identity politics is to give a sheen of progressiveness to organisations who ignore or even exploit the poor. It's no wonder the Democrats, the Labour Party, the SNP and the Greens are so keen on identity politics - they have abandoned ordinary people to neoliberalism while cosying up to the wealthy and their powerful corporations. However, their "brand" requires they look vaguely of the left. What to do? Let's adopt a rainbow flag and pretend we care about the oppressed, even as we have business breakfasts with those who exploit them, and abandon our raison d'etre.
The "woke" are not left wing. In fact, they destroy every left wing host that they infiltrate, as parasites often do. The original idea of identity politics was to allow the disenfranchised to speak for themselves: the working classes, refugees, the homeless. But it's been hijacked by the already powerful and the most privileged people in our society to claim that THEY are the oppressed because of their hair colour/fetish/self-diagnosed autism/something else no-one cares about.
The reason so many people on the left in the media are so entranced by identity politics is because they don't actually know any working class people as equals. The increasing social apartheid of British society means that working class people are closed out of decision-making fora. We certainly aren't working on broadsheets or at the BBC. We are discussed as objects, not engaged with as citizens. Watch your tv - the only authoritative working class voices you hear are football pundits. And don't they get rocks for not "speaking properly". Look at the difficulty people have dealing with the fact that the most racially diverse cabinet Westminster has ever had is pursuing the most racist policies in living memory. There is no room in that binary world for right wing people of colour, let along privately educated millionaire people of colour. God help me, I've got into my 60s and discovered the SWP were right all along - the only politics is class politics.
Identity politics on the "left" are the mirror image of culture wars on the right. It's a way of preventing solidarity among ordinary people, who must be constantly wound up with rage at the "other". It also explains the "No Debate" mantra - because they cannot justify what they're doing and are incapable of coherent debate.
Enough, Iain. Paul Mason is not "the left". Talk about going over the top!
I am sick of labels in politics. If you want to keep children out of poverty, have fair wages and a decent world you're "left wing" and therefore dodgy. If you agreed with Corbyn on anything, you're an extremist and probably an anti-Semite too. (Corbyn was neither!)
And do you know who I blame, Iain? You guys in the media peddling all this stereotypical nonsense in order to keep the kettle boiling and the hatred flowing.
Farage was sinned against by Coutts. That was wrong. Most people now see this because the minutes of a particular meeting emerged. So now we know. (Plus, if people didn't believe Farage to start with, can you blame us? I mean he's one of the biggest liars associated with Brexit and a racist to boot!) Coutts has managed to have Farage playing the role of a victim. Can we move on?
I realise you have different paymasters yourself these days but it is intolerable to see constant negative references to "the left" which lump many good people into a category at which you appear to be directing your contempt. That is deeply offensive.