Hi Roxie,
This kind of situation occurs from time to time — usually the best solution is to pay holding deposit from the account of someone already based in the UK.
It’s also quite easy to get a UK bank account now, with many ‘challenger’ banks offering accounts, e.g. Monzo.
You can skip the referencing stage, yes, so it’s only this payment of a week’s rent for the holding deposit that is blocking things at the moment.