Top Law Officer Calls On Nigel Farage to Say Sorry Over Reported Antisemitic and Racist Behaviour.

The United Kingdom's top law officer, Richard Hermer, has called on the Reform UK leader to issue an apology to school contemporaries who assert he targeted with racist abuse them during their years in education.

Hermer said that Farage had "clearly deeply hurt" many people, based on their accounts of his actions as a youth. He added that the politician's "shifting" explanations had been unconvincing.

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

Fresh Claims Emerge

A recent investigation last month documented the testimony of more than a dozen former classmates of Farage from Dulwich College.

One, Peter Ettedgui, described that a teenage Farage "came up to me and utter: ‘The Nazi leader was correct’ or ‘gas them’, occasionally including a long hiss to simulate the sound of the gas showers”.

Another pupil from an ethnic minority claimed that when he was roughly nine years old, he was similarly targeted by a older Farage.

“He came over to a pupil flanked by two equally tall mates and spoke to anyone looking ‘other’,” the former student said. “That included me on three separate times; inquiring where I was from, and gesturing, saying: ‘Go back that way,’ to any place you answered you were from.”

After the story broke, additional individuals have emerged; around two dozen people have now alleged they were either targets of or saw deeply offensive conduct by Farage.

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

Evolving Explanations

The Reform leader has rejected that anything he did was "explicitly" racist or antisemitic, and has claimed the accusers were misremembering.

Commentators have pointed out that Farage has not managed to condemn antisemitism and other forms of racism outright in his denials.

They also point to his reluctance to sanction a party member, a MP, after she made remarks about the number of black and brown people she saw in adverts. She later said sorry for the remarks.

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

He continued: “Claiming that a group of people have somehow forgotten the same things about his offensive behaviour simply lacks credibility."

Question of Character

“If he wishes to be seen as a credible figure for high office, he urgently needs address the concerns of the Jewish people, and say sorry to the numerous individuals he has clearly deeply hurt by his behaviour,” Hermer said.

“Prejudice in all its forms is completely opposed to the standards of this country and we must not permit it to ever become normalised in politics.”

In a separate interview, a senior politician said Farage should “make a statement” if he wanted to look like a genuine leader.

“It is very telling how very little he has to say, and the very careful language that both you and I would recognise as being drafted in a specific manner to say something, but also dodge the issue,” she remarked.

Formal Denials and Subsequent Comments

In formal correspondence before the release of the report, Farage’s lawyers claimed that “the suggestion that Mr Farage ever engaged in, condoned, or led such conduct is completely refuted”.

Farage later appeared to change his stance in an interview, remarking: “Did I say things 50 years ago that you could view as being playground talk, you could interpret in a today's standards today in some sort of way? Perhaps.”

He commented that he had “never directly attempted to go and harm anybody”. Farage subsequently issued a further comment: “I can tell you unequivocally that I did not say the things that have been printed aged 13, so long ago.”