More than a dozen of former schoolmates have described “deeply offensive” behaviour by Farage throughout his teenage years
Nigel Farage is facing fresh allegations of racism and antisemitism dating back to his time as a student at Dulwich College in the 1970s and 80s.
According to The Guardian, one of Farage’s classmates, the Bafta-winning director Peter Ettedgui, said the Reform leader “would sidle up to me and growl: ‘Hitler was right,’ or ‘Gas them,’ sometimes adding a long hiss to simulate the sound of the gas showers”.
The newspaper has also spoken to more than a dozen other former classmates who described a pattern of “deeply offensive” behaviour by Farage throughout his teenage years.
Ettedgui said he wasn’t the only target, and that he would hear him calling other students “‘P**i’ or ‘Wog’, and urging them to ‘go home’”.
From his experience, Ettedgui said: “There’s no doubt in my mind that he was a profoundly, precociously racist teenager … I’d like to know why he’s never owned up or shown the slightest contrition.”
A Reform UK spokesperson said the allegations “are entirely without foundation”.
“The Guardian has produced no contemporaneous record or corroborating evidence to support these disputed recollections from nearly 50 years ago.”
Labour Chair Anna Turley said: “These are disturbing allegations and it is vital that Nigel Farage now urgently explains himself.
“We have seen Farage’s weakness in the face of the divisive politics in Reform’s ranks. They are dragging our politics to a dark place.”
These aren’t the only allegations of racism and antisemitism Farage has faced.
In 2013, journalist Michael Crick unearthed a letter from 1981 in which teachers at Farage’s private school said they thought he was “racist”, and “fascist” or “neo-fascist”.
The letter, written by Chloe Deakin, an English teacher at Dulwich College, called on the headteacher, David Emms, to reconsider his decision to appoint Farage as a prefect.
Deakin did not know Farage personally, but said that a colleague who taught him “described his publicly professed racist and neo-fascist views”, citing an incident where he was “so offensive” to another pupil that he had to be removed from the lesson.
The teacher stated his view that this behaviour was precisely why the boy should not be made a prefect.
Another colleague said that “at a Combined Cadet Force (CCF) camp organised by the college, Farage and others had marched through a quiet Sussex village very late at night shouting Hitler-youth songs”.
In a BBC interview at Labour conference, David Lammy said that Nigel Farage “once flirted with Hitler Youth when he was younger”.
A Reform source told BBC News that Lammy’s comment was “disgusting and libellous”.
Lammy subsequently clarified that Farage had “denied” the claims.
The Guardian said that in legal letters, Farage emphatically denied saying anything racist or antisemitic when he was a teenager.
When the claims about him holding racist and fascist or neo-fascist views were made in 2013, Farage admitted saying “some ridiculous things … not necessarily racist things… it depends on how you define it”.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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