Boris Johnson has called on the boss of Natwest to resign if she is found to have leaked details of Nigel Farage’s bank account to the BBC.
The former prime minister also called on the government to order an inquiry into the row.
He said that if Dame Alison Rose “was in any way responsible then she really needs to go”. Writing in his Daily Mail column, Mr Johnson added that he did not know whether she had been behind the BBC’s account.
Dame Alison wrote to Mr Farage earlier this week insisting that comments made in a dossier by Coutts, the royal family’s bank which is owned by Natwest, “do not reflect the view of the bank”.
It came after the arch-Brexiteer said his account had been unfairly closed because the institution did not agree with his political views.
The bank reportedly cited the former Ukip leader’s retweet of a joke by the comedian Ricky Gervais about transwomen, and also his friendship with tennis champ Novak Djokovic, who opposes Covid vaccinations, to flag concerns that he is “xenophobic and racist”.
The dossier also repeated previous press reports, stemming from an old school friend, that a teenage Farage sang “gas ’em all, gas ’em all”, about Jewish people, as well as press claims from his former teacher that he had “once marched through a Sussex village singing Hitler Youth songs”, which he denies. The 40-page document also described him as a “disingenuous grifter”.
Mr Johnson said he did not know did not know if Dame Alison was behind BBC reports that Mr Farage’s account was closed because he had too little money. But he said Coutts had made a “terrible mistake”.
He said he read the Coutts dossier “with cold, hard fury”.
“They have made a terrible mistake. Coutts is no longer the self-styled posho bank used by kids at my school, who would buy turkey sandwiches from the tuck shop with 50p Coutts cheques. It is no longer entitled to behave as it likes.
“As a subsidiary of NatWest, Coutts belongs nearly 40 per cent to you and me, the taxpayers, because we bailed it out in 2008; and Alison Rose is publicly accountable for her decisions and her £5.2 million salary. That matters because what this bank has done is — paradoxically — disastrous for the reputation of UK financial services.”
He added: “I am afraid that if Dame Alison was in any way responsible then she really needs to go.”
Mr Farage has thanked Dame Alison for her apology – but also accused her of being forced into it by the Treasury.
He also said he could not “walk away” from the row.
