As part of the wider ‘debanking’ scandal, a whistle-blower at Monzo has revealed how staff openly mocked the Tory party in internal messaging.
The Telegraph published messages the whistle-blower shared on a Slack forum in October. One staff member wrote: “Maybe JRM [Jacob Rees Mogg] could do the human race a favour and stay out of politics forever. Doubt you could replace him with anyone who is more of an archetypal Tory”.
The same member of staff went on to describe the Tory party as “evil” and “ugly” the following day.
During the Conservative election loses in May, one staff member responded to a meme saying. “What’s great about this gif is that the Tories have lost Maidenhead” and another writing: “Tory losses in the local elections – we love to see ittttt”.
In March, an engineer wrote that the Spring budget had distracted the public from “the general state of the country”, while in January another said: “I hope I’m wrong though and we manage to topple the Tories for good. I’m not sure anyone can survive under the Tories for much longer”.
This story comes after it was revealed in July that Jeremy Hunt, the now UK chancellor, said he was refused a bank account by Monzo when he was a backbencher last year, claiming he was subject to differential treatment as a 'politically exposed person’.
The ‘debanking’ scandal has been taking the headlines after Nigel Farage claimed his account at Coutts was closed because of his political beliefs, resulting in the resignation of the heads of Natwest and Coutts.
Further to these comments about the Conservatives at Monzo, the dossier provided by the whistle-blower included comments from a senior manager in April 2022 that read: “the Tories are evidently swaying towards arguments put forward by Terfs”.
“Terf” stands for trans-exclusionary radical feminist and is a contentious term.
The Telegraph revealed earlier this year that the digital bank was reprimanded by the data watchdog after staff referred to a man criticising transgender inclusive policies as “horrible Terf”.
The Information Commissioner’s Office issued a rebuke, confirming it has written to the bank to “ask them to review and strengthen their own internal procedures and staff training in relation to this matter”.
MPs said that the internal discussions at Monzo raised fresh questions about the culture within banks.
“Banks should not behave like political activists,” Gareth Johnson, the Conservative MP for Dartford, told the Telegraph. “It is time the Treasury took action against those banks who increasingly seem to have a Left-wing agenda. Is it too much to ask banks to just get on with banking and to stop their political activism?”