Top Law Officer Calls On Reform UK Leader to Say Sorry Over Claimed Antisemitic and Racist Behaviour.

The UK's top law officer, Richard Hermer, has demanded the Reform UK leader to issue an apology to school contemporaries who assert he targeted with racist abuse them during their school days.

Hermer remarked that Farage had "clearly deeply hurt" many people, based on their descriptions of his past behaviour. He commented that the politician's "shifting" denials had been less than credible.

“Throughout his replies to legitimate questions, not once has Farage genuinely condemned antisemitism,” Hermer stated to a publication.

New Allegations Surface

A series of inquiries last month documented the accounts of over a dozen one-time schoolmates of Farage from a private college.

One, a former pupil, said that a teenage Farage "would sidle up to me and say: ‘Hitler was right’ or ‘send them to the gas chambers’, sometimes adding a long hiss to mimic the sound of the Nazi gas chambers”.

Another minority ethnic pupil stated that when he was about nine, he was subjected to similar treatment by a older Farage.

“He approached a pupil with two tall mates and addressed anyone looking ‘other’,” the person said. “That included me on three separate times; questioning me where I was from, and motioning, saying: ‘That’s the way back,’ to wherever you answered you were from.”

After the story broke, others have come forward; approximately twenty people have now stated they were either victims of or witnesses to deeply offensive past behaviour by Farage.

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

Denials and Shifting Positions

The Reform leader has denied that anything he did was "blatantly" racist or antisemitic, and has asserted the former classmates were misremembering.

Commentators have noted that Farage has not managed to condemn antisemitism and other forms of racism in a wider sense in his denials.

They also cite his reluctance to discipline a colleague in his party, Sarah Pochin, after she made remarks about the number of people of colour she saw in adverts. She later apologised for the comments.

“Nigel Farage’s evolving narrative about his behaviour to his peers [is] unconvincing, to say the least,” Hermer commented.

He added: “Arguing that a group of people have all forgotten the same things about his hurtful behaviour simply isn’t credible."

Call for Leadership

“If he aspires to be seen as a serious contender for high office, he has to address the concerns of the Jewish people, and apologise to the those he has clearly deeply hurt by his behaviour,” Hermer stated.

“Prejudice in all its forms is completely opposed to the principles of this country and we must not permit it to ever become accepted in public life.”

In a other comments, the Chancellor said Farage should “say something” if he wanted to look like a real leader.

“It says a lot how very little he has to say, and the guarded phrasing that both you and I would identify as being written in a specific manner to communicate, but also not to say something,” she noted.

Formal Denials and Subsequent Comments

In legal letters before the publication of the report, Farage’s legal team claimed that “the implication that Mr Farage ever was involved in, supported, or led such conduct is categorically denied”.

Farage later altered his explanation in an discussion, saying: “Did I say things 50 years ago that you could view as being teenage humour, you could interpret in a modern light today in a certain manner? Perhaps.”

He said that he had “never directly attempted to go and hurt anybody”. Farage later put out a fresh denial: “I can tell you definitely that I did not say the things that have been printed as a 13-year-old, decades in the past.”

Cheryl Bolton
Cheryl Bolton

A film critic with over a decade of experience, specializing in independent cinema and international film festivals.