🔗 Share this article

The UK's attorney general, Richard Hermer, has urged the Reform UK leader to issue an apology to former schoolmates who assert he targeted with racist abuse them during their time at school.

Hermer stated that Farage had "clearly deeply hurt" many people, according to their descriptions of his alleged conduct. He noted that the politician's "shifting" explanations had been unconvincing.

“In his replies to valid inquiries, not once has Farage actually condemned antisemitism,” Hermer told a news outlet.

Fresh Claims Surface

A published report last month outlined the statements of more than a dozen former classmates of Farage from Dulwich College.

One, a former pupil, described that a teenage Farage "came up to me and growl: ‘Hitler was right’ or ‘gas them’, sometimes adding a long hiss to imitate the sound of the Nazi gas chambers”.

Another pupil from an ethnic minority alleged that when he was roughly nine years old, he was similarly targeted by a 17-year-old Farage.

“He walked up to a pupil flanked by two similarly tall mates and addressed anyone looking ‘different’,” the individual said. “That included me on three occasions; inquiring where I was from, and gesturing, saying: ‘That's how you get back,’ to wherever you replied you were from.”

Following the initial report, others have emerged; about 20 people have now alleged they were either targets of or observed highly inappropriate past behaviour by Farage.

The incidents they outlined cover the period when Farage was aged a teenager.

Denials and Shifting Positions

The political figure has disputed that anything he did was "explicitly" racist or antisemitic, and has suggested the former classmates were misremembering.

Commentators have highlighted that Farage has not managed to condemn antisemitism and other forms of racism in a wider sense in his statements.

They also point to his failure to sanction a colleague in his party, a MP, after she made remarks about the number of ethnic minorities she saw in television commercials. She later said sorry for the comments.

“Nigel Farage’s evolving narrative about his behaviour to his schoolmates [is] not credible, to say the least,” Hermer commented.

He added: “Suggesting that 20 people have somehow recalled incorrectly the same things about his offensive behaviour simply is not believable."

Question of Character

“If he aspires to be seen as a serious contender for high office, he urgently needs address the anxieties of the Jewish people, and apologise to the those he has obviously deeply hurt by his behaviour,” Hermer concluded.

“Bigotry in all its forms is completely opposed to the standards of this country and we should not let it to ever become normalised in society.”

In a different discussion, the Chancellor said Farage should “say something” if he wanted to be considered a genuine leader.

“It is very telling how very little he has to say, and the precisely drafted words that both you and I would understand as being crafted in a certain style to say something, but also not to say something,” she remarked.

Formal Denials and Subsequent Comments

In legal letters before the publication of the investigation, Farage’s lawyers stated that “the suggestion that Mr Farage ever engaged in, condoned, or led racist or antisemitic behaviour is strongly rejected”.

Farage later seemingly shifted his explanation in an discussion, stating: “Did I say things decades ago that you could view as being banter, you could interpret in a today's standards today in some sort of way? Perhaps.”

He commented that he had “not once intentionally really tried to go and harm anybody”. Farage later released a new statement: “I can tell you unequivocally that I did not say the things that have been reported aged 13, so long ago.”