Gold is a pet rock, but now we have your pet rock we are holding it hostage.

If the Bank of England can refuse to return gold to a sovereign nation, imagine what they will do to individuals.

Venezuela Demands Its Gold, Bank of England Refuses

Any nation that leaves its gold with the Bank of England is insane. Britain is a state which sold off half of the nation's gold reserves, leaving Britain with lower gold reserves than Portugal (when Portugal has a population . So the British state could sell off half of the British gold reserves (and pre-announce it to drive the price down), but a country that's not big enough to retaliate in any meaningful way is starved of its own gold.

No wonder Germany has re-patriated so much of their gold reserves from foreign countries. In Italy Salvini sought to pass a law which clarified that the gold held by their central bank belonged to the Italian people rather than to the Italian state.

In the next crisis the state is more likely to confiscate pension funds than it is to go after gold.