Lloyds cuts off Canary, staff unpaid
Lloyds froze the Canary's account with no explanation, leaving staff unpaid, in a pattern that has also hit a Manchester Palestine charity.
Lloyds Banking Group closed the business account of independent outlet the Canary on 30 June, freezing what the outlet calls “a substantial amount” of its money and leaving staff and contractors unpaid.
Staff left waiting, no reason given
The Canary had banked with Lloyds for nearly a decade. The bank gave no explanation when it shut the account down. Steve Topple, the outlet’s director, said the effect was immediate: “We have been unable to pay any staff or contractors.” He said the team, which includes several marginalised people, was “extremely distressed and in limbo.”
The outlet had just hired three extra staff to launch a print edition, sold through roughly 6,500 newsagents across England and Wales. Two weeks after its first issue, that print edition has been suspended. Lloyds has declined to comment beyond saying it does not discuss individual customer accounts, and did not respond to requests from Novara Media.
Writer Rachael Swindon, in a 6 July piece for the outlet, called the closure “a class issue” as much as a free speech one: “If they can silence us, they can silence anyone.”
A pattern beyond one bank
The Canary is not the only case. Greater Manchester Friends of Palestine, a group that had banked with Virgin Money for 40 years without incident, had its account frozen on 10 July last year with more than £10,000 of small donors’ money trapped inside, days after the government proscribed Palestine Action. Treasurer John Nicholson said bank staff told him only: “I can tell you nothing.” The group had used the account to move roughly £30,000 in aid to Palestinian organisations over 18 months. Jewish anti-Zionist campaigner Tony Greenstein and the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign have faced similar closures.
The Canary believes its editorial line on Palestine and Israel is the reason it was cut off, though Lloyds has not confirmed any cause and the bank’s actual reasoning remains undisclosed.
Whose account gets protected
The contrast is instructive. When Coutts closed Nigel Farage’s account in 2023 over his political views, it produced an FCA inquiry, a public apology from NatWest and a settlement. When a socialist news outlet and a Palestinian solidarity charity are cut off, there has been no equivalent reckoning. The FCA itself has warned that banks’ reliance on “reputational risk” as grounds for closure is “broad, inconsistent and, at times, poorly controlled.”
There is no legal right in Britain to a bank account. That leaves a handful of bailed-out banks holding an unaccountable veto over which publishers and campaigners get to keep the lights on. The National Union of Journalists’ general secretary, Laura Davison, said the closure “sets a disturbing precedent for press freedom in the UK.” A free press needs a bank account before it needs anything else.
