Nigel Farage privately lobbied a senior Tory treasury minister for help with his de-banking complaint against NatWest, asking him for advice “before I go public”. WhatsApp messages shared with the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act show the former Brexit party leader contacted Andrew Griffith, then economic secretary to the Treasury, to discuss allegations that Coutts, NatWest’s private bank subsidiary, had closed his accounts because of his politics. A message sent by Farage shortly before 1am on 28 April 2023 said: “Thanks for making contact. Yes, a chat would be useful”. A further message sent just before noon the same day read: “Dear Andrew, when you have 5 minutes do let me know.” Twelve days later Farage got in touch again, saying: “Be keen to discuss my legal position with you before I go public on this.” The Treasury confirmed that a telephone conversation between Farage and Griffith later took place with a civil servant present.
No messages from Griffith are shown in screenshots of the exchange provided by the Treasury. He appears to have been using WhatsApp’s disappearing messages function. Griffith went on to play a key role in the ensuing row, summoning the bosses of the UK’s biggest banks to a meeting and raising concerns over the protection of free speech. The row led to the resignation of NatWest’s chief executive Alison Rose after she admitted discussing Farage’s relationship with the bank with a senior BBC journalist, and of Peter Flavel, the Coutts CEO. The financial regulator later found no evidence that banks had shut customers’ accounts primarily because of their political beliefs. Lawyers behind an independent review for NatWest also determined that Coutts had a “contractual right” to shut Farage’s accounts, and did so because the bank was losing money by keeping him as a client. They identified “serious failings”, but added that it had not discriminated against him. The disclosure will raise questions about the extent to which senior Tories worked with the GB News presenter before he launched his public complaint against NatWest. Griffith’s use of the disappearing messages function will also add to concerns about ministers avoiding scrutiny by using the app.
Emily Thornberry, the shadow attorney general, accused Farage and Griffith of secretly plotting together before the launch of the former Ukip leader’s campaign. “No one who has been following British politics for the last three decades will be remotely surprised to see this Tory government secretly conspiring behind the scenes with Nigel Farage to support each other’s campaigns and attacks,” she said. The Treasury admitted earlier this year that Griffith and Farage had been in contact. Farage has told the Guardian that Griffith’s role in holding banks to account had been “outstanding” and that every MP was aware of constituents whose businesses had been destroyed. “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,” he said. Griffith, who is now a science minister, said: “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.” Griffith said he had previously been aware of similar issues faced by Toby Young of the Free Speech Union. “I took the problem of de-banking incredibly seriously during my tenure as economic secretary and I am proud of the decisive action which we have taken as a government,” he said. John Edwards, the information commissioner, told ministers last year that they could face criminal sanctions for deleting their WhatsApp messages in some circumstances. The government also published new rules on using WhatsApp at the end of March, which stated that the use of disappearing messages must not affect “record keeping or transparency responsibilities”. A Treasury spokesperson said Griffith had followed the correct processes. “Guidelines state that disappearing message functions have a role in preventing the buildup of messages on devices,” they said. “In this instance correct record keeping processes were followed and a call was made in the presence of a civil servant, which was recorded and filed, and has been disclosed as part of the freedom of information request.” In the wake of the Farage de-banking scandal, some charities, churches and other community groups have described being thrown into financial disarray after Barclays shut or froze their bank accounts without warning. Few if any of them appear to have had had a direct line to a government minister.