Starmer accuses ‘spineless’ Farage of failure to tackle racism in Reform party | Nigel Farage

Nigel Farage has been accused of being “spineless” by the prime minister and a “coward” by his Dulwich university contemporaries over his response to allegations of racism.

Keir Starmer has said the Reform UK leader has “questions to answer” about alleged comments and hymns from his youth that included songs about the Holocaust and accusations of bullying of minority ethnic schoolchildren.

He added that Farage had a “history” of racism and pointed to his failure to discipline fellow Reform MP Sarah Pochin after she complained about the number of black and brown people she saw in adverts.

Speaking to reporters on the way to the G20 summit in Johannesburg, Starmer said: “He needs to explain the comments that were made or the comments that were alleged and he needs to do that as soon as possible. He doesn’t have a good track record on that because MP Sarah Pochin made some clearly racist comments and Nigel Farage did absolutely nothing about it.”

He added: “The man is spineless. If he was from my party I would deal with it immediately. He needs to explain the latest allegations and in doing so he needs to explain why his fellow MP is too spineless to take action on the blatant racism in his comments.”

“He’s said absolutely nothing about this so far. He’s got a lot to say on a lot of issues other than showing some leadership when it comes to racism.”

Contemporaries accused Farage of targeting minority ethnic children for abuse during his time at Dulwich college and a number of other racist acts, including allegedly singing a “gas them all” song referencing the killing of Jews, blacks and south-east Asians, and burning school grades in a year when the Patels were said to have outnumbered the Smiths.

Farage’s spokesman said allegations of racism and antisemitism in his youth were “completely unfounded” and that the allegations were “a remark made by one person against another”.

“If things like this happened a long, long time ago, you can’t remember exactly what happened,” the spokesman said.

A former pupil, who claimed he was the target of racist abuse when he was nine and Farage was 17, said: “As someone who was bullied by a racially aggressive person who towered over you, this will never be forgotten. Being ostracized on the secondary school playground just because you looked different will never be forgotten. People can forget many things but they can’t forget a hollow, helpless feeling of fear, I can assure you.”

Jean-Pierre Lihou, who has been Farage’s friend from Dulwich College for a while and said he was staying at his house, said Farage should personally address the allegations, which he described as numerous and consistent. “It’s not just one word against the other, there are many people with similar memories. Is he saying everyone made this up at the same time?”

Lihou, 61, who claimed he saw Farage mistreat award-winning film director Peter Ettedgui at school, added: “People need to wake up. It’s a brave thing to do. People have colleagues and some may disagree with you doing that. My nephew sent me a message that almost healed me. He said he’s never been so proud to call me his uncle. Hiding behind a spokesperson is cowardice. Because there’s nothing for him? Can you tell?”

Tim France, 61, who claimed he had heard Farage sing racist songs and give the Nazi “Sieg Heil” salute “regularly”, said Farage appeared to have adopted Donald Trump’s approach by generally denying anything that had harmed him.

He said: “Firstly it’s not ‘one man’s word against another’, it’s 12 people’s word against one. Secondly, when Michael Crick interviewed Farage in 2013 he gave a completely different response. He used the defence: ‘We all say stupid things when we’re young’.”

“So which reaction is real: ‘We all said stupid things’ or ‘It didn’t happen’ and we’re all ‘fake news’? I think what’s interesting right now is the inconsistency.”

The fourth former student in Dulwich College’s combined student force, who claimed to have heard Farage sing a song about gassing Jewish people, said: “My memory is very clear. You can’t have 12 witnesses to comment on something and then claim it could have been made up.”

“Their line of rebuttal is not just poor strategic communication, [it] Because he says these things openly, he does little to help Farage’s efforts to become a credible prime ministerial candidate, and a better strategy would be to accept that he has said stupid things in the past and is now a better man leading the country towards a more harmonious, less divisive future. “This shows a lack of moral courage.”

The reform leader is also under pressure to take action against Pochin following comments for which he apologized last month. The MP told TalkTV: “It drives me crazy to see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people.”

He said: “It doesn’t reflect our society and I think the average white person, the average white family… is no longer represented.”

Farage described his comments as “outrageous” but said he was not a racist and did not take any disciplinary action against him.

A Reform source said Starmer was “desperate, failed at the ballot box and is reacting”.

Farage said: “It’s utterly ridiculous that the weakest prime minister in living memory is calling me a spinet. Voters will have their say about both of us at the ballot box next May.”