🔗 Share this article

The UK's top law officer, Richard Hermer, has urged Nigel Farage to issue an apology to former schoolmates who claim he targeted with racist abuse them during their years in education.

Hermer stated that Farage had "obviously deeply hurt" many people, according to their descriptions of his actions as a youth. He added that the politician's "constantly changing" denials had been less than credible.

“During his answers to legitimate questions, not once has Farage genuinely condemned antisemitism,” Hermer stated to a news outlet.

Fresh Claims Emerge

A recent investigation last month documented the statements of over a dozen ex-pupils of Farage from a south London school.

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

Another student of colour claimed that when he was roughly nine years old, he was similarly targeted by a older Farage.

“He came over to a pupil accompanied by two tall mates and addressed anyone looking ‘unusual’,” the person said. “That involved me on three separate times; inquiring where I was from, and gesturing, saying: ‘Go back that way,’ to wherever you answered you were from.”

Since then, additional individuals have emerged; approximately twenty people have now stated they were either targets of or observed highly inappropriate actions by Farage.

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

Changing Stories

The political figure has denied that anything he did was "blatantly" racist or antisemitic, and has suggested the former classmates were being untruthful.

Commentators have highlighted that Farage has neglected to condemn antisemitism and other forms of racism more broadly in his statements.

They also point to his failure to reprimand a party member, Sarah Pochin, after she complained about the number of ethnic minorities she saw in television commercials. She later expressed regret for the comments.

“His shifting account about his behaviour to his Jewish classmates [is] unconvincing, to say the least,” Hermer commented.

He continued: “Arguing that two dozen individuals have somehow misremembered the same things about his hurtful behaviour simply is not believable."

Call for Leadership

“If he wants to be seen as a legitimate candidate for the top job, he must confront the anxieties of the Jewish people, and apologise to the many people he has obviously deeply hurt by his behaviour,” Hermer said.

“Racism in all its forms is anathema to the standards of this country and we cannot allow it to ever become normalised in politics.”

In a other comments, a senior politician said Farage should “make a statement” if he wanted to appear as a genuine leader.

“It speaks volumes how little he has to say, and the guarded phrasing that both you and I would recognise as being crafted in a specific manner to communicate, but also avoid saying certain things,” she remarked.

Legal Letters and Later Statements

In legal letters before the release of the investigation, Farage’s representatives asserted that “the implication that Mr Farage ever took part in, approved of, or led such conduct is categorically denied”.

Farage later appeared to change his position in an appearance, stating: “Did I say things 50 years ago that you could interpret as being teenage humour, you could interpret in a today's standards today in some sort of way? Possibly.”

He added that he had “not ever purposely really tried to go and upset anybody”. Farage subsequently issued a new statement: “I can tell you categorically that I did not say the things that have been published aged 13, decades in the past.”