LEADING left economist Michael Burke called for the nationalisation of Britain’s banking system yesterday after fines were imposed on financial institutions including Barclays which rigged foreign exchange systems and committed other crimes.

Barclays is one of six banks whose traders colluded under chatroom nicknames such as “the Cartel” to rig exchange rates.

They have been fined 5.7 billion US dollars (£3.7bn) for their part in the scandal.

Barclays has been fined £1.53bn by British and US authorities, including £284.4 million by Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority, the highest penalty ever imposed by the regulator.

Royal Bank of Scotland was hit with a £430m fine, on top of a £399m penalty imposed last November by regulators in the US and Britain.

However, the fines are dwarfed by the banks’ surging profits.

Economist Mr Burke, of the respected Socialist Economic Bulletin, said public ownership of the banks was the only solution to the corruption.

“The scandal on foreign exchange rigging is just one of many, after mis-selling, Libor-fixing and other scandals yet to come to the public,” he said.

“The complete double standard is evident. If someone poor or unemployed were guilty of a trivial theft, they would be prosecuted and sometimes jailed.

“Hardly anyone will be jailed as a result of these enormous conspiracies involving billions.

“The ridiculous feature of this is that these banks have been bailed out by one bank or another.

“In Barclays’ case, it was the dictators in Qatar.

“The public sector has a controlling interest in some of the biggest banks. It licenses all of them and is supposed to regulate all of them.”

Mr Burke noted that there are existing regulatory levers that could be used, but he called for “full nationalisation” to direct the banks away from speculation, market-rigging and mega-bonuses for bosses towards being banks that work for the whole economy by channelling funding towards productive investment.

Labour shadow chancellor Chris Leslie condemned “appalling collusion” between bankers who rigged exchange rates and called for “fundamental reform and tougher penalties for banking misconduct.”

No individual bank bosses have been prosecuted.