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Australian PM Anthony Albanese got loose during a whiskey-fueled new podcast interview, even name-dropping his celeb crush.

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The UK's Latest "Debanking" Scandal Should Give Everyone Pause

Authored by Nick Corbishley via NakedCapitalism.com,

UK-based readers may recall the moment almost exactly three years ago when the word “debanking” entered the mainstream British English lexicon. The prestigious London-based private bank Coutts had just decided to close Nigel Farage’s bank account due to his unsavoury political views and alleged Russian connections. That decision turned out to be very costly.

Almost immediately, Farage did what Farage does best: he whipped up a massive media frenzy. In next to no time two senior banking scalps had been claimed: those of Dame Alison Rose, the CEO of Coutts’ parent bank and “Big Four” lender, Natwest (formerly known as the Royal Bank of Scotland) and Coutts’ chief executive Peter Flavel.

Within a month, Natwest’s share price had slumped 8%, wiping £1 billion off its market cap, much of which was being propped up with public funds, and generating juicy returns for short-selling hedge funds. As we reported at the time, the resulting scandal drew much-needed public attention to a long-standing but accelerating trend — the “de-banking” of people and organisations with politically inconvenient views:

[T]his is hardly a one-off event: as I reported a couple of weeks ago, banks on both sides of the Atlantic are increasingly debanking their customers, often without explanation. I gave the example of California-based writer, activist, and social and political commentator Elad Nehorai, whose political views and ideals could not diverge more from those of Nigel Farage. Yet he, too, had his account at Bank of America, his bank of many years, summarily closed with no apparent warning or explanation…

Without a bank account, it is almost impossible to participate in the economy. And it is getting more difficult as cash becomes harder and harder to access and use. As Alex Lo writes for South China Morning Post, “Banking is a fundamental utility like water and electricity, and that’s precisely why democratic societies are increasingly turning to its use as a method of censorship and repression.”

However, the resulting government inquiry concluded that customers were not being “debanked” for political reasons. As a result, not only has debanking continued but debanked customers now face the prospect of being blocked from setting up new accounts at other banks, as the Telegraph reported on Monday:

Banks are planning to block “debanked” customers from setting up accounts with other lenders, potentially leading to innocent people being effectively locked out of the financial system, The Telegraph can reveal.

Lobby group UK Finance is developing a platform that will allow banks to share data on their customers where they detect “markers of economic crime”.

Lloyds, Barclays and Revolut have already started sharing data about customers, leading to accounts being frozen or closed, The Telegraph understands, following a pilot in 2024.

The data-sharing platform will build on that pilot to make a UK-wide system, which could automatically bar people from opening another account.

But concerns have been raised that thousands of innocent customers and businesses who have been debanked unfairly could be barred from opening up an account with another bank, effectively leaving them locked out of the financial system.

The latest victim of the debanking trend is the left-wing news website The Canary, which has accused the Lloyds Banking Group of “withholding a substantial amount of our money”  after nearly a decade of use. The news outlet — which brands itself as “radical working-class media” — says “Lloyds has not explained why it has taken this action… despite multiple communications from us”.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Canary speculated about the possible reasons behind Lloyds’ decision, including its anti-Zionist and pro-Palestine stance:

Whilst we do not currently know the reasons behind our debanking, we cannot afford to be naive about this.

We do know that multiple other politically engaged people have suffered similar actions by other banks in recent times. It is not lost on us that powerful banks are able to restrict the financial activity of anti-Zionist and pro-Palestine organisations and individuals.

It is an outrage that the Canary has been unceremoniously dropped into financial instability with no notice or explanation from Lloyds.

Starmer’s Last Attack

It would hardly come as a surprise the attack was in response to The Canary’s pro-Palestine sympathies. The UK government has done everything within its not inconsiderable powers to criminalise pro-Palestine, anti-genocide activism, including by scrapping the ancient right to trial by jury. Through its new National Security Law, the outgoing Keir Starmer government seeks to bulldoze literal thought crime legislation into law — in Orwell’s native United Kingdom.

I need to explain something very important to you.

The law that the govt used to arrest me, Section 12(1A) — the first ever use against a journalist — is a very short line. It is vague on purpose. And that is the exact line they have copied into the new "National Security Bill"

— Richard Medhurst (@richimedhurst) July 1, 2026

You can say something that is 100% factual, but if it paints what they deem a "proscribed organization" — even one that has never harmed the UK — in a "good" light, you can get 14 years in prison. (That's also copied from the Terrorism Act).

Anything you say can be twisted.

— Richard Medhurst (@richimedhurst) July 1, 2026

An article in The Canary explains just how dire a threat the new National Security Law poses to journalism and political dissent, describing it as “one last power grab” by Keir Starmer’s outgoing government:

As I am sat here writing this, there’s a sense of terror kicking in. I’m a journalist. It’s my job to be in the know about foreign affairs. At the Canary we pride ourselves on bringing people the news that the mainstream doesn’t dare. But this terror is absolutely nothing compared to what other people must be feeling.

This radicalised weaponisation of new legislation will hit marginalised communities so first and hardest. Journalists and community workers with direct, lived and painful connections to global conflict zones are facing a massive legal trap. If a reporter so much as quotes an entity that the home secretary has designated as a threat, they face immediate prosecution.

Civil liberties groups warn that the law will grant the Home Office absolute power to decide who is allowed to speak. And by leaving the definition of ‘assisting a designated body’ vague, the state has created a total monopoly on the narrative. It’s very much going to be, follow their way and toe the line, or go to jail, it seems.

Indie media outlet Zeteo warned of the severe danger of this new power-grab. The outlet warned that journalists face immediate arrest simply for conducting public interest interviews with banned groups. People will only get one side of the story. There will only be one narrative fed to us… and it will be the government’s.

The timing of Lloyds Bank’s debanking of The Canary is also curious, coming just two months after it announced the launch of a daily left-wing print tabloid — and what’s more, one that defends Palestinian rights. Following an injection of cash last year from used car and property website founder Cecil Hetherington, Canary director Steve Topple hailed the new tabloid as an alternative to the corporate press.

After its debanking, the Canary says it is now in a “financially precarious situation” and does not know when “money that Lloyds is holding will be returned” or how it will affect “our ability to get another bank account in the future”.

“The immediate effect has been that we have been unable to pay any staff or contractors,” Topple told Novara Media. “We have a large team, and all of them are now extremely distressed and in limbo. Many of them are marginalised people and it has hit them very hard. We are trying our best to mitigate the situation and have so far received much-appreciated support from members of the public.”

Lloyds’ actions have already triggered a storm of protests from across the political spectrum.

This is a disgraceful move by @LloydsBank

Be under no illusion, it's an attack on all independent media in UK that doesn't tow the government line

If Lloyds doesn't sort this immediately, a widespread boycott campaign should ensue https://t.co/VbdqcKcI9i

— Matt Kennard (@kennardmatt) July 1, 2026

Corbyn told the Canary that the anti-democratic attempt to silence an independent news site was "a very dangerous road"

Via @skwawkbox https://t.co/rgxQhu6HmI

— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) July 2, 2026

The Canary has been debanked by Lloyds.

Debanking is one of the most pernicious forms of cancellation that an individual or organisation can face — something the FSU is only too familiar with.

Lloyds has provided no explanation for its decision and has not told The Canary when… https://t.co/Y2YKbFC1wu

— The Free Speech Union (@SpeechUnion) June 30, 2026 A Growing Phenomenon

The first major target of debanking in the UK, well over a decade ago, were members of the British Muslim community, particularly those involved in Pro-Palestinian activism. But unlike with Farage, their plight was met with total radio silence in the mainstream media, as the veteran journalist Peter Oborne recounts in the video below.

Peter Oborne Exposes Nigel Farage Banking Bigotry @OborneTweets pic.twitter.com/sir2vSAPlq

— Double Down News (@DoubleDownNews) July 11, 2023

By the time Farage had lost access to Coutts’ banking services, in the summer of 2023, banks in the UK were closing nearly one thousand accounts daily, with just over 343,000 closed in 2022, compared to about 45,000 in 2017.

Following the Farage affair, the Financial Conduct Authority conducted an investigation into banks’ debanking practices, the conclusion of which was that banks had not been closing customers’ accounts for political reasons. Farage described the outcome as “farcical”.

In the US, recent victims of debanking include Scott Ritter, the former United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) weapons inspector who is a prominent critic of US and Western imperialism. In January, his bank of 26 years, Citizens’ Bank, closed all of his accounts, including his and his wife’s joint accounts with their daughters, without offering an explanation, as he recounts in the first minutes of the following interview with Judge Napolitano:

In a letter to Ritter Citizens Bank apparently that not only was it under no obligation to divulge the reasons for closing his accounts but that Citizens’ policy actively prevents any disclosure of any information concerning the decision to close the account. As Cato Institute notes, this silent treatment often has to do with confidentiality laws:

However, these are not laws meant to protect the financial privacy of customers. Rather, this confidentiality is to prevent citizens from finding out they are under criminal investigation. For example, reports filed under the Bank Secrecy Act are restricted so heavily that banks cannot share the details of the reports or even admit that a report exists.

While Ritter does not know the exact reasons for his debanking, he suspects that someone in the FBI, fully armed with the “totality of [his] banking transactions”, had “tipped off” Citizens Bank about “suspicious activity” that resulted in Citizens Bank issuing an SAR [Suspicious Activity Report].”

Ritter believes that donations he had received and subsequent cash withdrawals before his three trips to Russia in 2025, which thanks to US and EU sanctions is disconnected from the Western economy, may have triggered the move. According to Ritter, the “purpose of “de-banking” is to harass a targeted individual,” even in the absence of evidence pointing to any criminal activity.”

The reasons for an account closure, while often a mystery to the customers affected, often include operational reasons. Put simply, a financial institution chooses to close the account of a customer because the reputational risks of being associated with that client are simply too high. However, political or ideological motivations appear to play a part in some prominent cases.

The most clear-cut example of this was the Canadian government’s decision, in February 2022, to invoke the emergencies act to compel banks to seize the accounts of the freedom convoy protesters who had blocked several key border crossings. According to the minutes of a meeting between Canada’s Economy Minister, Vice President and WEF board member Chrystia Freeland and senior bank executives the day before the act was invoked, one CEO flagged concerns that if banks were forced to close accounts, it could be seen as the sector “being used as an arm of the government” or even “a political weapon.”

In 2022, Paypal banned the accounts of the UK-based Free Speech Union, its founder Toby Young and his online publication, the Daily Sceptic, for purportedly breaching its policies against hate speech. Worse still, the fintech giant surreptitiously slipped a line into its terms of service granting itself the right to fine customers $2,500 for spreading misinformation. When the news got out, provoking a huge public backlash, PayPal claimed it had all been a big mistake.

Of course, as NC readers EssCetera and Rev Kev pointed out in comments to a previous post, Paypal has a long, storied history of doing this sort of thing, going all the way back to its freezing of Wikileaks’ account in 2010. And banks in the US have been closing down the accounts of workers in the porn industry since at least 2014 as part of “Operation Chokepoint”, which targeted certain undesirable but legal business sectors (h/t Michaelmas).

From “Debanking” to “Civil Death”

If there’s one fate worse than being debanked, it is suffering through the ordeal of “civil death”. Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian occupied territories, became subject to US sanctions roughly a year ago that cut her and her family off not only from US banking but also travel and tech.

In Albanese’s case, it was clear to her why she was being put under constraints normally reserved for narco-barons and terrorists: she had just published a UN report denouncing the more than 60 (largely Western) multinational corporations that are allegedly complicit in, and profiting from, Israel’s military occupation of Gaza.

“This fury [came] because I poked the bear,” she said. “Not in one eye, in both eyes.”

👉 “The moment I pointed to the fact that there are businesses who are profiting from it, yes, I get sanctioned.”

The first UN expert in 80 years to be sanctioned by the U.S. explains why she now faces a U.S. travel ban, frozen accounts, no ability to bank anywhere, cancelled… https://t.co/ia3WLhmyV7

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) December 11, 2025

In the clip below, Albanese explains (in French), as she fights back tears, the extent to which she has been barred from participating in basic civil life since the imposition of US sanctions against her:

“I can’t make payments with my working credit card nor can I do transfers; my health insurance has been cancelled, I can’t make hotel reservations… I’m being treated as if I were Pablo Escobar. “

UN official Albanese described financial and insurance restrictions imposed on her following her public statement characterizing Israeli actions as genocide.

"I can't make payments with my working credit card nor can I do transfers; my health insurance has been canceled, I can't… pic.twitter.com/zAH7paGjxm

— HatsOff (@HatsOffff) June 30, 2026

Other victims of civil death, this time at the hands of EU authorities, include the German journalist Hüseyin Doğru and Jacques Baud, a retired Swiss colonel and former senior strategic analyst for NATO. In both cases, the justifications were openly ideological. Baud was accused of of acting as a “mouthpiece” for pro-Russian propaganda and disseminating “conspiracy theories” about the war in Ukraine while Doğru was targeted due to his reporting on Gaza.

In the case of Doğru, both his wife and mother were also targeted with sanctions (h/t vao). In neither case were criminal charges imposed, and because the sanctions are defined as an administrative measure within the EU’s bureaucracy, neither Baud nor Dogru can appeal to a court of law in their respective countries of residence (Belgium and Germany). This is the very definition of Kafkaesque.

Worse still, these sorts of processes could soon be automated almost across the board, as I warned in my 2022 book Scanned:

Combining [central bank] digital currencies with digital IDs while phasing out, or even banning, the use of cash would grant governments and central banks the ability not only to track every purchase we make (and made in the past) but also to determine what we can and cannot spend our money on. They could also prevent certain “undesirable” people from buying anything. Anyone with a blocking notice attached to their digital identity would “thus be unable to do many of the most basic things independently,” says [German financial journalist Norbert] Häring.

Incidentally, the digital euro has already become a de facto legal reality, after the European Parliament (EP)’s economic and monetary affairs committee gave a green light to the eurozone central bank digital currency (CBDC) last week. Presumably, even many members of our highly informed readership will have been unaware of this fact since it all occurred against a wall of near-total media silence.

Tyler Durden Sun, 07/05/2026 - 08:10

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Eliezer Alfonzo had waited a lifetime for the call he got Friday. So, too, had his 16-year-old little sister. “One of her dreams was watching me play in the big leagues,” the Dodgers’ new backup catcher said. “And today I have the opportunity to be here, being part of a big-league team.” Eliezer Alfonzo Sr.’s...

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Ideology is ironically trumping science in the heat wave cooking Europe. America's progressives should take note.

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Germany's AfD Tricks Thousands Of Antifa Revolutionaries

Germany's right-wing AfD party re-elected co-leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla at its annual conference in Erfurt, a central German city. Meanwhile, far-left activists, professional political agitators, and NGOs funded by dark money attempted to restrict access to the event through a coordinated pressure campaign.

BREAKING:

Around 2500 far-left militant Antifa extremists along with 25 000 far-left protesters have arrived in Erfurt to protest against the AfD’s federal party congress.

Journalists from @jungefreiheit and @apollo_news_de have been attacked by Antifa, beaten up and have had… https://t.co/2KAf4R74Zv

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) July 4, 2026

Der chronologische Zusammenschnitt aller Videos des brutalen Antifa-Angriffs auf die drei Apollo Reporter.

Was dieser Hass-Mob mit Demokratie zu tun hat, diese Frage sollten SPD und Grüne mal beantworten müssen... pic.twitter.com/Tg6MSQSfT7

— Benedikt Brechtken (@ben_brechtken) July 4, 2026

Kurzer Lagebericht – AfD-Bundesparteitag Erfurt

Die Delegierten sind bereits gegen 5 Uhr in der Messehalle angekommen. Die „Antifa“ und das „Widersetzen“-Bündnis haben komplett verschlafen – die Blockaden kamen viel zu spät. Der Saal war früh voll, der Parteitag konnte… pic.twitter.com/W1TudPJNzx

— Petr Bystron (@PetrBystronAfD) July 4, 2026

Local police estimate that around 15,000 far-left activists descended on Erfurt to block roads and prevent AfD members from reaching the convention area. However, as one news outlet pointed out:

AfD tricks Antifa. The motley crew of disheveled youths, chronic unemployed, students of babble studies, and NGO staffers sat on the street starting at 05:30 a.m. to block the AfD's arrival. But the AfD had already arrived an hour and a half earlier in a long convoy under police protection. And while the AfD delegates could leisurely have breakfast and prepare for the party congress that starts at 10 a.m., Antifa is squatting pointlessly on the street. With the AfD, you just get up earlier

AfD trickst Antifa aus.

Die Melange aus verwahrlosten Jugendlichen, Dauerarbeitslosen, Studenten der Geschwätzwissenschaften und NGO-Mitarbeitern saß ab 05.30 Uhr auf der Straße, um die Anreise der AfD zu blockieren.

Die AfD war aber schon eineinhalb Stunden früher in einem… pic.twitter.com/zYS42pZdg7

— GFrei.News (@GFreiNews) July 4, 2026

The conference comes as AfD's growing confidence among the population becomes evident, with the party leading polls ahead of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservatives. Recent surveys put AfD support at 29%, compared to about 22% for the CDU/CSU bloc.

"Germany’s AfD is at 28% in national polls, the most popular party, and 41% in an eastern state where an election will be held in September: add the far left, and populism is >50% of the electorate. There appear few stable German political coalitions that exclude the AfD" - Rabo

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 11, 2026

Weidel and Chrupalla used their speeches to attack mainstream parties, blast globalists, and sharpen their anti-immigration message.

AfD became the second-largest party in last year's elections, with its influence growing amid mounting public frustration with liberals and their failed globalist policies, whether nation-killing open-border migration, de-growth climate policies, or other progressive policies that are ruining the West. 

Tyler Durden Sun, 07/05/2026 - 07:35

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Multicultural French Crowds Brawl Over Discount Air Conditioners As Heatwave Looms

Via Remix News,

France was gripped by chaos on Thursday, July 2, 2026, as an exceptional sale of discounted air conditioners at Lidl descended into long lines, emptied shelves, and physical fights between customers nationwide. The retailer had put 200,000 units up for sale — nowhere near enough to meet demand as yet another heatwave looms next week following a record-breaking heatwave just last week.

Videos of the various incidents went viral across social media.

In Lyon, a youth was seen ripping an air conditioner from a woman while they tussled on the ground. He then proceeded to push her back multiple times.

🇫🇷🔴A multicultural youth steals an air conditioner from a woman in a Lidl supermarket in Lyon, France.

Lidl launched a sale of 200,000 air conditioners as yet another heatwave looms for France.

Demand was far higher and mass brawls were seen across France in the discount… pic.twitter.com/ChcNOjOiUM

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) July 2, 2026

In another video, a large brawl broke out between numerous women, including women in headscarves.

🇫🇷Violent brawls break out over air conditioners and fans during a large sale in France's Lidl supermarket.

Follow: @RMXnews pic.twitter.com/RnZqvf6XrP

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) July 2, 2026

Overall, the situation was quite chaotic in numerous locations.

🇫🇷🔴Diverse crowds brawled across France over cheap air conditioners after a record-breaking heatwave.

Lidl supermarket launched a sale on 200,000 air conditioners but demand was far higher than supply in the end.

The end result was chaos in many stores.

Follow: @RMXnews pic.twitter.com/9OJYwzMWcZ

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) July 2, 2026

“Lidl France deplores the incidents that occurred in its stores,” the retailer told AFP in response, acknowledging that its employees “had to manage tensions, in a sometimes difficult climate.” The company attributed the shortages to “the sales cycle of [its] products,” explaining: “Products ordered one year in advance and arrive on Thursdays in our supermarkets, always at a fixed price.”

The chain had also tried to defuse tension with humor on social media, responding to a post about a fight over a Lidl air conditioner with a meme referencing Game of Thrones. But the levity didn’t stop clashes from breaking out at multiple Lidl locations across the country, including in Rennes and Nanterre.

In Nanterre, around a hundred people gathered according to BFMTV. A line began forming at 7:30 a.m. even though the store didn’t open until 8:30 a.m.  The news outlet described that the doors then “collapsed” under pressure from the crowd trying to make their way into the store. It further noted that “fights broke out between several people over the ten air conditions that were available.”

A similar scene played out in Paris, where crowd were largely good-natured, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP), though altercations still broke out among customers trying to cut ahead.

In Hazebrouck, in northern France, journalists from La Voix du Nord reported that there were only four air conditioning units available for around 60 customers. Le Parisien documented similar crowd scenes at several Lidl stores across the Île-de-France region, while Ouest-France reported that police also had to intervene in Trélazé and near Angers, where the situation escalated as soon as one store opened.

The Lidl frenzy is just the latest flashpoint in a broader rush on fans and air conditioners across France and neighboring countries as the country braces for another heatwave forecast by Météo France. Many residents are eager to avoid a repeat of the extreme heat seen at the end of June — and lines had already been forming at stores selling air conditioners, fans, and even survival or cooling blankets in Meudon in the preceding weeks.

Belgium saw a nearly identical episode at Aldi, where a promotional sale of air conditioners priced at 145 euros similarly spiraled into disorder, with customers wrestling units out of each other’s hands.

Other major French retailers have faced the same surge in demand. Fnac Darty CEO Enrique Martinez told BFM Business that “people were waiting outside the stores from 4 a.m.” during the heatwave, and that “some came to blows.” He added that “the teams worked hard to serve everyone and bring in as much equipment as possible” from warehouses.

At Leclerc, the numbers tell a similar story. “We sold 700,000 fans and coolers in three weeks” — an increase of almost 200 percent, Michel-Édouard Leclerc said Thursday on TF1. “We sold nearly 60,000 air conditioners, that’s also more than 35 percent [more].” He added: “We still have some left. Now it’s distribution problems to take into account population movements with ‘departures on vacation.'”

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Sun, 07/05/2026 - 07:00

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Two others were injured in the attack on northern Crimea, including one in a serious condition, the Russia-installed regional Gov. Sergei Aksyonov wrote on Telegram.

The race marks a homecoming for five drivers on the grid.

Larter said her summer months look "totally different" since she made the move to Sun Valley, Idaho, in 2020.