Assaults on Barclays put our employees in danger and are usually not justified by Center East occasions | CS Venkatakrishnan

Since final October, I’ve watched with rising sorrow the humanitarian tragedy unfolding within the Center East. Inside Barclays, a worldwide financial institution of which I’m the chief govt, we have now been deeply sympathetic concerning the total struggling within the area. We’ve got educated ourselves, contributed to supportive charities and consoled all our personal colleagues who’ve skilled loss.

Throughout this era, there has additionally been a marketing campaign of disinformation in opposition to Barclays. The crux of the allegation is that we finance defence producers and put money into them. Let me be clear about what we do and don’t do. Like different banks within the UK, we finance some corporations making defence gear, alongside their civilian merchandise.

These corporations are supported by our democratically elected governments for his or her function in defending the UK and allies in Europe. We won’t undermine our personal nationwide safety by de-banking them. We aren’t an investor in any of those corporations, although we sometimes maintain shares in them on behalf of our purchasers.

Whereas we reject false allegations and unreasonable exhortations, we’re very keen to debate them. We’re equally accepting of peaceable demonstrations.

Nonetheless, some activists have been damaging our branches and attacking our employees. Final weekend 20 websites had been vandalised throughout Britain. Whereas these assaults pale compared to the devastation within the Center East, they very a lot threaten my colleagues.

The anti-defence protests have not too long ago fused with local weather activism, however a vital distinction is that our critics on local weather have largely engaged with us and our shareholders peacefully. We’ve got diminished our financed emissions for the vitality and energy sectors by 44% and 26% respectively prior to now three years. This progress was partially mutually accepted solely after critical, reasoned dialogue.

All of us have a proper to security, together with in our workplaces. Furthermore, the UK is outlined by our civil concord, underwritten by our civic freedoms. I totally help the precise to peaceable protest and, certainly, did so myself after I was youthful, in opposition to establishments that supported apartheid. Nonetheless, protest should not descend into destruction. Simply as we should always attempt to finish struggling and struggle overseas, we should reject violence at house.

An identical disinformation marketing campaign, although peaceable, has focused our help of cultural establishments. Individual writers and performers are being pressured to withdraw from festivals because they receive funding from companies such as Barclays.

The UK’s artistic and cultural life is world-renowned and revered. Our literary and music festivals are the warp and weft of our cultural life and an essential supply of gross sales and publicity for artists. Rejecting funding solely hurts their livelihood and our broader tradition. No one advantages from diminished funding for the humanities.

It will be significant that we restore cause and discourse to our dealings with one another. As a democracy, we have now the areas to debate these points. Their security is our safety and we should defend them.