here on RT International to discuss uh
this decision well uh first off um what
are your thoughts what's your impression
of what's going
on well it's shocking but not surprising
it comes at a time when it's been
obvious in Parliament and in the Deep
state that there is a state of anxiety
about the growing influence and
popularity of RT in the country and this
coincides with
uh simultaneous fall in The credibility
of the British State broadcaster the BBC
and the British don't like that it
throws uh a very sharp light on the BBC
that fewer and fewer people are watching
it and less and less who are are paying
very much attention to what it says it's
just crude British State propaganda so
they've been nervous about RT for some
time hased RT has posed some serious
competition uh to a lot of uh networks
but uh just um looking at this
particular situation that we have at
hand here um we are waiting for some
sort of uh explanation uh from uh the
bank and so far we haven't received any
so why is it that the bank um hasn't uh
come forward with any explanation so far
why are they refusing to explain
themselves
well they haven't and they won't and the
answer is clear in your news package
this bank is owned by the British
government this is a decision taken by
the British government it flows from the
discussions of uh the last few weeks
about
intensifying sanctions against Syria and
Russia over what's happening in the
Middle East over what's happening in the
Ukraine what's happening on the
International level the British state
has told this bank which it owns to
close this account it has the benefit
for them of not being a formal break in
diplomatic relations but being a
significant spanner in the works of
Russia's uh uh preeminent uh broadcaster
RT it means the British don't have to
answer questions about it and no one can
force the bank to answer questions about
it so it's quite acutely contrived
spanner to throw in the works to show
Russia uh of increasing levels of
British
unhappiness so uh in other words this
decision uh reflects the Noto Rosy uh
state of relationship between uh Russia
and the UK
right there's been a long history of
this I don't want to T backs your
historical memory but back in the early
1920s the British government was
invading Russian State Property then
Soviet state property for example was
constantly uh breaching diplomatic Norms
in its relations with Russia Britain
even invaded Russia in the Civil War
after the October Revolution Britain has
had bad relations with Russia for almost
a century and uh I think this is just
another miserable chapter that the
British have written into the history
books the good news is this is the 16th
year of the 21st century and no one no
one certainly not Boris Johnson can stop
the British people getting access to RT
and they will in increasing numbers well
certainly our countries uh have uh
enjoyed a very rich history uh there
were good pages in it and not are good
Pages uh pages to be proud of and uh
some of the things that um actually uh
raised a lot of uh concern but uh Mr G
just um speaking of um today's decision
and what we are discussing um it's uh
certainly unexpected and um the bank
decision said as our correspondent
mentioned earlier that uh the decision
of the bank is not subject to uh
revision um what does that mean I mean
does it mean there's no room for
maneuvering there's no room for
discussion there's no room for legal
procedures what are your
thoughts absolutely none the banks have
in their uh Financial articles and in
the contracts that they have with
clients that they can discontinue
banking uh Services Arrangements at any
time without giving a reason you can
complain to the banking ombudsman but
that's not what the paper it would be
written on no this is a crude uh brute
decision by a British government owned
bank to cause a problem not a great one
I think uh for Russia and for RT and
they will not negotiate it they will not
revise it uh you'll just have to find
other bankers and if uh you can't find
other Bankers you'll just have to bank
through Russian Banks here uh in London
that's what I would do if I were you but
it does pose the question uh what does
Russia do uh Visa V the BBC the British
State
broadcaster uh are there grounds for
retaliatory measures against the BBC in
Moscow in in Russia I would would have
thought yes it's of course a matter for
your president and for your government
but uh uh my knowledge of Russia which
is quite deep and quite long is that uh
Russia cannot be pushed around uh easily
anymore you talked about good Pages uh
of course the second world war for a
brief period was uh a very glorious page
but since then the only decent period of
British Russian relations have been when
Russia was ruled by someone who allowed
uh others to steal Russia's wealth now
that Russia is governed by people who
don't allow people to steal Russia's
wealth who don't allow people to
humiliate Russia well I'm afraid
relations commensurately soured well
we've heard uh some harsh R rhetoric
coming uh towards uh uh Russia uh from
uh the west and uh especially uh
mainstream media through the mainstream
media I should say but you know just um
going to the situation uh looking at the
situation at hand here uh what I know so
far is um there's an organization called
The International Federation of
journalists and they're saying that um
UK bank should publicly explain his
decision to block accounts of RT
broadcaster so um obviously there's
going to be some uh pressure from um
International organizations um on the
bank for uh this uh decision but uh John
George sorry um just looking at um what
you said earlier and the hostility that
uh there is towards a Russian mainstream
media in the west uh for uh that matter
uh I just want to ask you um how it all
happen I mean obviously kind of
snowballed you know escalated uh and got
to the point where we are now I mean two
years ago our T banners were taken down
across London um what is the problem
that um UK um has with rt apart from
obviously what you uh mentioned
earlier well the the key problem I
repeat myself is that RT has become
extremely popular at the same time as
the British State broadcastter the BBC
has become increasingly unpopular if
nobody was watching RT we wouldn't be
having this conversation now and your
bank account would still be open you see
in the hypocrisy called Britain not
democracy but hypocrisy you're allowed
freedom of speech as long as no one is
listening to you but as as soon as a
large number of people are listening to
you and finding your take on things
persuasive more persuasive than the
others then that's when the alarm Bells
start ringing that's when the spanners
start being thrown in the works and of
course other broadcasters have suffered
this same fate and I've been expecting
as why I said at the beginning it's
shocking but not surprising because I've
been expecting something I have seen
from inside the parliament where I sat
for almost 30 years and outside I've
seen the mounting levels of concern
about the growing popularity of RT which
matches Western broadcasters uh for
professionalism for production standards
for the quality of the journalism
everything it just has a different take
uh on the events a parallel universe
actually in this universe that I'm s
sitting in now in London it's a great
thing that Britain and America and Iraq
are bombing mosul to kill Isis but it's
a big crime that Russia and Syria are
bombing Aleppo to get rid of Isis how's
that for a parallel universe well
certainly uh love it or uh hate it RT
has uh
provided uh alternative source of
information to a lot of viewers around
the world and
uh the UK is no exception there as some
analysts say that RT what RT has done
it's broken the um Western Monopoly on
information um you know earlier the
Russian foreign Ministry spokeswoman um
in uh response to the decision of nat
West to block arti accounts uh said uh
that uh uh the the e in voting to leave
the EU Britain had also left behind its
freedom of spee speech and freedom of
speech obligations I should say so um my
question to you now is how much has
brexit already change the
UK well we haven't brexit did yet and
might not even yet uh brexit uh nobody
knows about that this is the British
behaving as they do in the way that a
scorpion behaves like it does because
it's a scorpion and because we are and
albe it faded imperialist power we think
with our big brother Uncle Sam we have
the right to go around the world
altering it in our own image as we
please and when anyone stands up against
us they become the the new enemy the new
Hitler even can you imagine the Russian
people gave 27 million lives to actually
defeat the real Hitler but the president
of Russia is routinely described in the
British media as the new Hitler nothing
could be more obscene a comparison than
that so Britain doesn't feel Bound By
Any obligations of free speech at least
when that free speech is beginning to
find an audience is beginning to be
heard and be persuasive we are of course
signatories of a whole number of
conventions which guarantee freedom of
speech and freedom of expression that'll
be one of the reasons why the British
government have used a bank decision to
throw this spanner in Russia's Works
rather than they themselves take a
decision to close RT in London that
would have been a very clear breach of
international obligations they're hoping
to achieve the same result but without
the embarrassment of having to do that
but don't rule out that possibility too
uh if uh things get hotter over the next
few weeks and months uh even that kind
of crime against the British people's
right to
information uh cannot be ruled out well
uh George we are waiting for a formal
awaiting formal explanation uh from uh
the UK um as to what happened today and
why this happened of course but um what
a complex world we live in to put a mild
I'd like to thank you very much for your
uh views and analysis that was a British
politician George Galloway talking to us
here on RT International