Dear Jack,

As you may know, several weeks ago, Coutts Bank told me they were closing all my accounts. Our banking sector had joined the woke mob and it was my turn to be cancelled.

I had been a customer with the group since 1980. Yet I was given no explanation. Lies were told about me and my client confidentiality was breached. I was shocked and embarrassed and left to work out how to function without a bank account.

Since then the public reaction has been truly astonishing. I have been humbled by all the messages of support I have received. In fact many have told me the same thing had happened to them.

I felt I had no choice but to stand and fight.  After all, if they can do it to me, they can do it to you.

After a Subject Access Request to the bank, the truth was even worse than I thought. Coutts had been monitoring my social media for some time. Their ‘reputational risk committee’ had produced a Stasi-style report that said vile and potentially libellous things about me.

It was horrifying and read like a charge sheet in a political show trial. My friendship of Novak Djokovic is mentioned. So too my support for Brexit and Donald Trump. Even my retweet of a Ricky Gervais gag is listed. Coutts decided I didn’t ‘align with their values’ and that they should ‘exit’ me.

It is outrageous and disgusting that banks have been allowed to make our lives a misery in this way. If we have social media checks on bank accounts, we will finish up with a Chinese style social credit system

To add insult to injury, these are the very same banks we bailed out in 2008. Yet now they treat us with total contempt. Without a bank account you are a non-person in the digital age. Decent people are living in fear and it can’t be allowed to go on.

I am going to fight this all the way. The Treasury are acting and the Financial Conduct Authority say they will act too.

But I wonder if this is the start of something much bigger. A Facebook group with 10,000 members who had their accounts shut down by NatWest - the same group as Coutts - are fighting back.

Hundreds of thousands more people live in fear of cancel culture. Whether in their jobs or on social media, they might also begin to fight back against woke bullying. In fact millions of people around the country have had enough of being told what they can and can’t say.

But despite the support I have received from people of all political colours, the truth is stark. The old mainstream parties have betrayed us. It is because of them that our most basic freedoms are being destroyed.

Labour and the Tories have simply misled us at every turn. They had no intention of controlling immigration or delivering on Brexit.  Taxes are at their highest levels since 1945. Law and order in our big cities are gone. They have denuded our armed forces and our public services are fundamentally broken. I despise what they have done to our country.

Reform UK are now the only party who are prepared to fight for our freedom and I am proud to be our party’s Honorary President. Under Richard’s leadership, Reform has made huge strides.

The task ahead is even bigger than Brexit. It is only just beginning, and we have an enormous opportunity to take our country back. I’m standing with you as I have always done, against an establishment determined to tear our country down. Together, I know we can Make Britain Great.

Thank you,

Nigel Farage 

Reform UK Honorary President