Don’t be fooled: this row is about more than Nigel Farage and Coutts – what lies beneath is Brexit

‘Almost the only person who could have generated and sustained this episode in this way was Nigel Farage.’ Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images

So the Mediterranean is on fire, the Ukraine war not going well, the health service on its knees and the economy still at risk of recession. Pretty obviously, therefore, the most pressing question facing Britain today is whether Nigel Farage can keep an account with one of this country’s poshest banks – which is making profits at the high end of a sector that has looked the other way while the cost of living crisis has blighted the lives of millions.

To be absolutely clear, no bank should deny an account to a customer because of their lawful politics. That’s a no-brainer civil liberty issue, even in the case of a millionaire like the former Ukip leader. If that is definitively what happened between Coutts bank and Farage, it was wrong.