Closed petition No more bank bailouts - allow reckless banks to fail

Closed on 12 August 2016

In 2008, due to their reckless gambling with speculative financial products using money they did not actually have, the banks precipitated a worldwide economic crisis. The banks received over £100billion of public money in bailouts and loans to try and prevent them from collapsing completely.

Since 2008, banking practices and culture have not changed enough to prevent a re-occurrence. The burden of saving the banks has fallen mostly on taxpayers, rather than those responsible for the crash. We cannot, as a nation, allow this to happen again. If banks cause another crash, they should be allowed to fail, and not receive another bailout. The government has refused to bail out non-banking industries that provide many jobs (most recently, steel), so they should treat banks the same.