Gender-Critical Parents Group Blocked From Opening Bank Account, Claims Founder

Metro Bank in Sheffield, England, in an undated file photo. (Tim Goode/PA)

The boss of a gender-critical parents group has claimed that Metro Bank blocked him from opening a new account because of his views.

Keith Jordan, the founder of Our Duty, told The Epoch Times that a Metro Bank manager told him by phone that it could not open a business account because of what the group believes is in conflict with the bank’s culture.

Our Duty, a group of more than 2,000 parents, rejects gender ideology and says that a “great many children who consider themselves transgender would, if they avoid transition, grow out of their feelings of dysphoria, anxiety and depression.”

However, Metro Bank denies that decisions around accounts are based on personal or political beliefs.

Stonewall

Mr. Jordan told The Epoch Times that the “priority of course is to find a UK bank willing to do business with us.”

“Sadly, it seems all the main players have been ideologically captured by Stonewall.”

Metro Bank, Britain’s seventh-largest bank with 2.5 million customers, is a member of the Stonewall Champions scheme.

The LGBT charity Stonewall has received increasing scrutiny for its lucrative diversity programmes, controversial advice to organisations, and alleged influence on public policy.

“The Stonewall idea is that there is one truth and it is the gender identity ideology truth, which is exactly what we’re fighting against,” said Mr. Jordan.

He added that Our Duty considers gender identity ideology to be a “complete falsehood and a destructive one as well.”

Affinity Groups

Mr. Jordan said that he believes that there is a “very loud, very active, and very uncompromising lobby” that has been very successful at creating LGBT affinity groups within organisations.

Affinity groups are group of employees with similar backgrounds, interests, or demographic factors such as gender or ethnicity.

He said that they use those groups to “claim some kind of disadvantage and to subsequently influence policy to have their particular worldview protected at the cost of everybody else’s worldview.”

The Epoch Times has not been able to independently verify the phone call between Mr. Jordan and Metro Bank, which he said he requested to have.

Mr. Jordan said that a follow-up email, seen by The Epoch Times, said that the bank did not mention the call and said that the policy “doesn’t currently allow organisations to receive donations if not a registered charity, and for community groups to be linked to, or influence political policies or legislations.”

A Metro Bank spokesman told The Epoch Times by email that it “cannot comment on individual accounts.”

“Any decision not to open an account will be based on a variety of reasons such as, commercial, legal, and regulatory factors (including money laundering), and is not based on the personal or political beliefs of the individual or organisation,” he said.

A Stonewall spokesperson told The Epoch Times by email: “Our workplace programmes are purely focused on building inclusive working environments for LGBTQ+ employees. We do not seek to influence decisions such as how organisations interact with customers—that is none of our business. Any claims to the contrary are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what we do.”

De-banking

Over the past few months, there have been increasing reports of de-banking, where banks suspend accounts with views and effectively decline services to a customer over political views.

Last week, the British political leader Nigel Farage claimed that Coutts, the prestigious private bank he had been with for over 40 years, has closed his bank account with “no explanation.”

This week, Barclays paid out over £20,000 in compensation to a Christian ministry after it closed its accounts following pressure from LGBT activists.

Following Mr. Farage’s claims, former Brexit Party MEP Christina Jordan claimed she had been kicked out by her bank after 30 years.

The UK’s financial watchdog Financial Conduct Authority has been urged to prioritise a review into whether people are being denied bank accounts over their political views.

Tim Price, director at the investment management company Price Value Partners, previously told The Epoch Times that he’d like to think that this is a problem that “can be solved by the exercise of the free market itself.”

“So the invisible hand will sort it out,” he said.

Mr. Price noted that there has been a series of high-profile market reactions that have been negative to companies pushing certain agendas.

“For example, the way that investors have targeted Bud Light, that targeted Target, they’ve targeted Disney for some of this behaviour,” he said.

“If that doesn’t happen, then clearly we need some kind of regulation to restore sanity,” he added.