Attorney general urges Nigel Farage to apologise over alleged racism and antisemitism | Nigel Farage

The UK’s top legal official, one of the most senior Jewish government ministers, has called on Nigel Farage to apologize to school contemporaries who claim the Reform UK leader racially abused them while they were at school.

Attorney-General Richard Hermer said Farage’s accounts of his behavior had “clearly hurt deeply” many people and his “ever-changing” denials were unconvincing.

Speaking to the Guardian, Hermer said: “Throughout his defensive responses to legitimate questions put to him, Farage has never once genuinely condemned antisemitism.”

A Guardian investigation last month reported testimony from more than a dozen former classmates of Farage at Dulwich College in south London.

Among them was Peter Ettedgui; he said that 13-year-old Farage would “come up to me and grumble ‘Hitler was right’ or ‘he gassed them’, sometimes adding a long hiss to imitate the sound of gas showers”.

Another ethnic minority student claimed he was similarly targeted by a 17-year-old Farage when he was around nine years old.

“He walked up to a student who was flanked by two friends of similar height and talked to anyone who looked ‘different’,” the student said. “That included me three times, asking where I was from and pointing somewhere else and saying, ‘This is the way back to where you said you came from.'”

More people have come forward since the Guardian published its first story; Around 20 people claimed to have been either victims of or witnesses to Farage’s highly aggressive past behaviour.

The events they describe cover the period between Farage’s ages of 13 and 18.

The Reform leader denied that everything he did was ‘directly’ racist or anti-Semitic and claimed not all of his former classmates were telling the truth. Hermer’s intervention comes after Keir Starmer accused the Reform UK leader of being “spineless”; He suggested he had “questions to answer” about alleged comments and chants in his youth that included songs about the Holocaust and accusations of bullying against ethnic minority students.

Critics noted that in his denials Farage failed to condemn antisemitism and other forms of racism more broadly.

They also point to his failure to discipline fellow Reform MP Sarah Pochin, who complained about the number of black and brown people she saw in ads.

He later apologized for the comments.

Following news of the Reform UK leader’s school days, Hermer told the Guardian he thought: “Nigel Farage’s ever-changing story about his behavior towards Jewish classmates [to be] at least not believable”.

He added: “It is simply not credible to claim that 20 people have somehow misremembered the same things about his bad behaviour. Throughout his defensive responses to legitimate questions put to him, Farage has never once genuinely condemned antisemitism.”

“If he wants to be seen as a legitimate prime ministerial candidate, he must urgently address the concerns of the Jewish community and apologize to the many people he has clearly deeply hurt by his actions.

“Racism in all its forms is contrary to the values ​​of this country, and we can never allow it to be legitimized in public life.”

In the days after the anti-Semitic attack in Manchester in October, Lord Hermer spoke about the fears of the British Jewish community at his local synagogue, saying that all they wanted was to live and worship freely, without fear.

In a separate interview with the Guardian, Rachel Reeves said Farage needed to “speak up and say things” if he wanted to appear like a real leader.

“It speaks volumes how little he has to say and the very careful language that both you and I understand is tailor-made not just to say one thing but to say one thing,” the chancellor said.

“He sits there and hides during PMQs where people present these things to him. He says he is a real opposition leader. A real leader talks and says things. He needs to explain what he really thinks.”

Before the Guardian’s investigation was published, Farage’s lawyers argued in legal letters that they “categorically reject any allegations that Mr Farage has engaged in, condoned or led racist or antisemitic behaviour”.

Farage later appeared to change his position in an interview with the BBC: “Did I say things on the playground 50 years ago that you could interpret as a joke, but today you could interpret in a somewhat modern light? Yes.”

He added that he “never directly, truly went out and tried to hurt anyone.” Farage later issued a new statement: “I can tell you categorically that I did not say the things that were published in the Guardian when I was 13, nearly 50 years ago.”