Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage is getting the last laugh after leftists in the British banking industry tried to cancel his account for political reasons.
The CEO of Coutts, Peter Flavel, resigned Thursday, becoming the second banker to lose their job over the censorship scandal.
The story sounds like something out of a dystopian movie - except it happened in real life.
In brief, Farage's account at Coutts was closed out because of his "xenophobic and racist" views - and the bank tried to hide the real reason from the public.
At first, the bank claimed that Farage's account was closed because he didn't meet a wealth threshold, but this pretext eventually unraveled after a dossier about Farage and the "reputational risk" of having him as a client emerged. The file cited his "racist" views and friendship with Donald Trump.
Coutts, a bank for the wealthy, is a subsidiary of the NatWest group, which is partially owned by the British government.
The CEO of NatWest, Dame Alison Rose, resigned and admitted to leaking the (initial, misleading) story about Farage's account to the BBC, an integral part of Britain's censorship machine.
She was followed by Flavel, who said the bank had "fallen below the bank’s high standards of personal service." Well, that's certainly one way of framing the issue.
In any case, Flavel said he bears "ultimate responsibility" for what happened, and Farage agreed, saying it was "only a matter of time" before he was forced out.
Britain's conservative prime minister Rishi Sunak condemned Farage's treatment.
"This isn't about any one individual, it's about values – do you believe in free speech and not to be discriminated against because of your legally held views?" Sunak said.
While this story has a happy ending, it highlights a pressing threat to freedom all throughout the Western world - the rise of Orwellian new forms of censorship, particularly in the financial and corporate sectors.
Of course, bigger targets, like Farage - or Donald Trump - have dealt with this kind of persecution at a larger scale than most people - but anyone who dissents from the agenda of the Brave New World risks being crushed with crippling sanctions that make it impossible to have a normal life.
Farage has given conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic with a reason to cheer, as leftist jackboots are, for once, getting a taste of their own medicine - but the fight is far from over.
