🔗 Share this article

The UK's attorney general, one of the most senior Jewish ministers, has urged Nigel Farage to apologise to former schoolmates who assert he targeted with racist abuse them during their school days.

Hermer remarked that Farage had "obviously deeply hurt" many people, according to their accounts of his past behaviour. He noted that the politician's "evolving" denials had been difficult to believe.

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

Fresh Claims Emerge

A published report last month documented the testimony of more than a dozen ex-pupils of Farage from Dulwich College.

One, a former pupil, recalled that a teenage Farage "would approach me and say: ‘Hitler was right’ or ‘send them to the gas chambers’, sometimes adding a long hiss to simulate the sound of the gas showers”.

Another pupil from an ethnic minority claimed that when he was about nine, he was singled out by a older Farage.

“He came over to a pupil with two similarly tall mates and targeted anyone looking ‘unusual’,” the person said. “That included me on three occasions; questioning me where I was from, and motioning, saying: ‘Go back that way,’ to wherever you answered you were from.”

After the story broke, more people have come forward; about 20 people have now alleged they were either subject to or saw highly inappropriate past behaviour by Farage.

The alleged events they recounted relate to the period when Farage was aged a teenager.

Denials and Shifting Positions

The political figure has denied that anything he did was "directly" racist or antisemitic, and has asserted the former classmates were misremembering.

Commentators have highlighted that Farage has not managed to condemn antisemitism and other forms of racism more broadly in his denials.

They also reference his inability to sanction a fellow Reform MP, a MP, after she complained about the number of people of colour she saw in adverts. She later apologised for the statements.

“His constantly changing story about his behaviour to his peers [is] not credible, to say the least,” Hermer commented.

He went on to say: “Arguing that 20 people have all misremembered the same things about his nasty behaviour simply lacks credibility."

Demand for Accountability

“If he wants to be seen as a legitimate candidate for prime minister, he must address the anxieties of the Jewish community, and say sorry to the those he has clearly deeply hurt by his behaviour,” Hermer said.

“Prejudice in all its forms is abhorrent to the principles of this country and we must not permit it to ever become legitimised in politics.”

In a other comments, Rachel Reeves said Farage should “say something” if he wanted to look like a true statesman.

“It says a lot how little he has to say, and the very careful language that both you and I would understand as being written in a particular way to communicate, but also avoid saying certain things,” she noted.

Formal Denials and Subsequent Comments

In lawyers' communications before the publication of the report, Farage’s representatives asserted that “the allegation that Mr Farage ever took part in, condoned, or led racist or antisemitic behaviour is categorically denied”.

Farage later altered his position in an appearance, saying: “Have I said things decades ago that you could view as being banter, you could interpret in a today's standards today in some way? Possibly.”

He added that he had “never directly sought to go and hurt anybody”. Farage subsequently issued a fresh denial: “I can tell you definitely that I did not say the things that have been reported when I was 13, so long ago.”