A Brexit Champion’s Feud With His Elite Bank Brings a C.E.O. Down

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When Nigel Farage campaigned for a fellow populist, Donald J. Trump, in Arizona in 2020, he seemed like a faded star seeking the spotlight abroad after it had swung past him at home. Having helped mobilize the pro-Brexit vote in 2016, Mr. Farage was marginalized in Britain, then consumed by the pandemic. No longer: For three weeks, Mr. Farage, has been back on the front pages of British papers, with an attention-grabbing claim that his exclusive private bank, Coutts, dropped him as a customer because of his polarizing politics. Early on Wednesday, after Mr. Farage’s allegations were largely vindicated, the chief executive of his bank’s parent, NatWest Group, resigned after she admitted improperly discussing his bank account with a BBC journalist. The chief executive, Alison Rose, said she was guilty of a “serious error of judgment.” For Mr. Farage, who expertly stoked the dispute on social media and with appearances on the TV network GB News, the drama catapulted him back into the limelight. It was a striking turn of events for a political insurgent who became, for many, a reviled symbol of Brexit, and later, a culture warrior on right-wing television.