Not on a point of law. Ashers were accused of discriminating against the agitator Lee because he was a homosexual. They court judged that Ashers did not discriminate against Lee.

The double standards that you are applying to Ashers and Coutts is plain to see. All this nonsense about ownership of the cake and the account is just that, squid-ink nonsense.

Edited by georgenorman (22 Jul 2023 6.31am)

There you go!

I had no expectation that you would understand the differences, let alone accept them, so your dismissal is of even less surprise than it is of value.

Of course the Supreme Court case was decided on a point of law. That’s what it does. It was highly complicated and extremely controversial, involving human rights issues, NI and EU law. The judgements of both the County and Appeal courts had gone the other way but the SC disagreed which now means the only way to rectify this is via new legislation. That is unlikely to be done by this government nor high on the list of priorities of the next. Want to read the actual judgement?

[Link]

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

It was not highly complicated at all. What is controversial is that the original judgement was in favour of the agitator Lee.

Ashers were charged with discriminating against the agitator Lee because he is a homosexual.

It was blindingly obvious that Ashers objected to the propaganda that Lee wanted on the cake and would have objected had the customer been heterosexual or any sort of person.

But of course you are just trying to deflect from the main point of you applying double standards, for political reasons, in this case and the Coutts case.

You haven’t read the judgement have you?

The SC held that the Ashers did not discriminate, whilst the County and Appeal courts disagreed. The difference was the application of very specific laws and nothing “blindingly obvious”. That’s just your prejudice speaking.

My contention all along is that the cake was never the property of Ashers, but of their client. Therefore their only interest was in the ingredients and not in any wording.

I don’t think this was really tested by the SC who looked only at whether they possessed the judiciary power to rule on the case.

This though is a settled, for now, issue and not directed related to Farage. If it did you would be arguing against yourself.

Edited by Wisbech Eagle (22 Jul 2023 9.40am)

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

But therein is the point. You checked him out and interviewed him. In your words he “needed a fresh start - and you helped”

That’s very benevolent of you, but under your terms you wouldn’t have been able to say no if you established he was no threat, and secondly had the money. You wouldn’t have been able to choose to help, you would have had no choice.

One of the roles I held in my career was COO of Wealth Management / Private Clients for a global bank. Beneficial ownership was always one of the biggest issue for banks when onboarding new clients, particularly where Trust funds are involved.

As regulation and governance has increased so has the need for KYC refresh / periodic reviews. The Farage issue has no bearing on that at all. It's now become part of ongoing Compliance activity - or at least it should. Banks continue to be penalised for lax AML controls.

When it comes to Farage v Coutts, Farage was correct in his assumption that he was being debanked for his political views. So Coutts were happy enough to take his money in the first place and have painted themselves into a corner by their actions. They are in the wrong and they know it.

The wider picture is this ; Coutts, owned by Nat West - the renamed RBS Group. It's difficult to offer much positive comment on this organisation given its unsavoury recent history. I know there was a view in the City that promoting Alison Rose to CEO was part of a charm offensive to demonstrate what an inclusive, diverse institution they now are. But something at the core remains rotten, and Rose may well not survive this and a number of other issues that have surfaced.

Old, Ungifted and White