Boris dragged under fire online (Image: PR)
This website has uncovered a torrent of politically charged social media posts about the Conservatives, Brexit, Donald Trump, trans issues and climate change, most of them from high-ranking Monzo employees.
This comes as it has emerged that Chancellor Jeremy Hunt was refused an account with the bank, which has around seven million UK customers.
It was also reported that staff had referred to the Tories as “evil” and “ugly” via internal messages seen by The Telegraph and that Jacob Rees-Mogg “could do the human race a favour” by leaving politics.
Prior to the tweet in July 2022, Head of Customer Experience at Monzo, Harry Ashbridge, posted to Twitter: “If Russians want to get into the UK no questions asked, they just need to donate to the Tory Party.””
Former Vice President of Marketing at Monzo likens Trump to Nazi’s as she tweets against him (Image: PR)
In July 2021, Mr Ashbridge wrote online: “Always baffled by the people who insist Boris is some kind of 4d genius. We like to think the people in power are somehow Machiavellian but he’s just a ruthless idiot and it’s a system of privilege and corruption that props him up.
In the same month Mr Ashbridge, in a tweet comparing well known political figures to the England football team, wrote: “Also Priti, Boris, Nigel etc can all f*** off right into the sun – they are the opposite of what this England team is about, and if (when) we win it will be in spite of p***** like them.”
Meanwhile, the former Vice President of Marketing at Monzo, Sarah Conrad, who left the company this month and describes herself as an “activist” on Twitter, shared a social media post in August 2017 referring to the “45th President” alongside an image strongly reminiscent of a swastika.
Donald Trump was the 45th President of the United States. In June 2017, Ms Conrad retweeted an article claiming that an “anti-Trump bar” was being opened in east London.
Full on attack over Brexit (Image: PR)
In January of that year the marketing guru once again took to social media to attack the then President, writing simply: “Golden showers for @realDonaldTrump? How… on brand.”
Ms Conrad also appeared to be promoting “Brexsh*t” t-shirts four days after the UK’s vote to leave the European Union. The Tweet was accompanied by a picture of the t-shirts that she appeared to be promoting, which showed a grey top with the word “brex” next to an emoji of human faeces.
In November of the same year Ms Conrad retweeted a speech by then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, in which he said: “The fake anti-elitism of rich, white men like Farage and Trump is farcical, but in reality it’s no joke at all.”
At the time the tweets by Ms Conrad were written or shared, she was not a member of staff at Monzo but at tech giant YouTube.
Adding to the pile of senior Monzo staff taking aim at the UK’s governing party is the company’s Director of US Operations, Thomas George.
In July 2018, Mr George shared an online post calling on then PM Theresa May to resign, to avoid having to manage Britain’s exit from the EU and having dinner with Donald Trump.
It said: “If I was @theresa_may I’d just quit today. Brexit is a s*** show and that way you’ll get out of dinner with the American idiot.”
Vaibhav Bhatla shows support of eco-fanatic Greta Thunberg (Image: PR)
A year earlier, in May 2017, Mr George retweeted an official post from Monzo’s twitter account which said: “We can’t blame you handsome lot from taking pictures, just make sure they’re of the right things”, above a GiF of Barack Obama.
Mr George said of the post: “Does your bank send you @BarackObama gifs? Thought not…” The actions of the Tory Party and Donald Trump were not the only hot button political issues exorcising Monzo staff, climate change was another subject of concern for a senior employee of the bank.
On June 6, 2021, Chief of Staff to the CEO of Monzo, Vaibhav Bhatla, reposted a Guardian article from the then teenage eco-fanatic Greta Thunberg, in which he quoted her as saying “climate change will overwhelm every issue”.
According to his LinkedIn profile Mr Bhatla started at Monzo two months after retweeting the Swedish climate crusader.
As recently as February of this year, an Engineering Manager at the challenger bank by the name of Chris Socha, shared a tweet lambasting Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s stance on migrant boat crossings and cheekily calling her a “political refugee”.
UK accused of increasing levels of transphobia (Image: PR)
The tweet Mr Socha shared, which included an article claiming that Ms Braverman may struggle to keep her Fareham parliamentary seat, read: “It must feel so awful to be unable to find a safe haven – somewhere secure – when you are a political refugee.”
At the top of his profile, Mr Socha, who uses the pronouns “he/him”, pinned a thread of tweets from January 2021 which he claimed was a “very important read on how the UK has become increasingly transphobic”.
Mr Socha’s apparent belief that the UK is becoming “increasingly transphobic” is likely to be shared by the senior Monza manager that The Telegraph revealed had said “the Tories are evidently swaying towards arguments put forward by Terfs”.
TERF stands for ‘Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist’ and is used as a pejorative term to criticise feminists that wish to deny trans women access to female-only spaces.
The publication also revealed that another Monzo member of staff branded Harry Potter author JK Rowling “vile”. Rowling has been outspoken on gender issues and has herself frequently been branded a ‘terf’.
On Boxing Day last year, Mr Socha once again took to social media to attack Suella Braverman. The manager retweeted a post from a Laura Kuenssberg “beyond parody” account which read: “BREAKING: Temperatures have fallen to -55c in parts of the US, making it the only place on Earth that is currently colder than Suella Braverman’s heart x”.
That was not the first politically-themed festive tweet Mr Socha fired off in 2022 however On Christmas Eve he retweeted an image of Rishi Sunak speaking to a small child under the caption: “”Do you work in business?”.
Mr Socha joined the company in August 2022. Monzo’s staff aren’t just political online though, one employee in particular appears to enjoy attending rallies for causes he believes in.
Andrew Pym, a senior manager at the bank, in March 2019 posted an image from an anti-Brexit rally on his instagram account.
Continuing the pro-Remain theme, on June 23 2016 – the day Britain voted to leave the EU – Mr Pym posted a photo of a topless man wearing a digitally drawn EU-themed shirt.
The post was accompanied with the caption: “He’s voting in, wont EU? #ShirtsOffForEurope”.
The Monzo manager retweeted a tweet from his mother, Susan, wife of Hugh Pym, saying that if her dog could vote in the 2017 election it would be for ardent Remainer and Labour candidate Tulip Siddiq.
Ms Siddiq is now a shadow minister in the Treasury. In 2015, Mr Pym reposted former Green leader Natalie Bennett’s tweet in which she celebrated her party’s general election performance in 2015.
Mr Pym was not at the company when these social media posts were sent. The blatantly political messages by Monzo staff uncovered by this website and before that the Telegraph comes against the backdrop of the Nigel Farage “debanking” scandal, in which his account with Coutts Bank was closed because the bank didn’t believe his politics aligned with their values.
Following the scandal the boss of Coutts resigned as did the CEO of NatWest. Coutts is a subsidiary of NatWest.
A Monzo spokeswoman said: “Our ambition is to make money work for everyone, which means that we’re politically neutral and personal views play no part in our policies or decision-making, including eligibility for a Monzo account.
Any suggestion otherwise is categorically untrue. These are personal views from the personal social media accounts of a handful of current and former Monzo employees.
As individuals, they’re completely entitled to these views, and they don’t represent the views of Monzo.”