Nigel Farage has a point. Coutts should explain itself

Nigel Farage, here watching a recent Ashes Test match, was deemed by Coutts to have public views ‘at odds with our position as an inclusive organisation’. Photograph: Matt Impey/Shutterstock

Let’s start with where Coutts was within its rights to dump Nigel Farage. The former Ukip leader, according to the memo of the meeting of the “Wealth Reputational Risk Committee”, was about to fall below the qualifying threshold to be a customer.

That threshold is maintaining borrowings or investments of more than £1m, or more than £3m in savings. Farage was soon to pay off his mortgage, presenting Coutts with a choice. It could keep him as a customer and overlook the qualifying criteria. Or it could put him on a “glide path”, in the language of the committee, to being removed. It opted for removal.