The attorney general said Farage’s “constantly changing” denials are unconvincing
The UK’s top lawyer, Richard Hermer, has urged Nigel Farage to apologise to his former classmates at Dulwich College over claims he racially abused them.
Hermer, who is Jewish himself, said that Farage’s alleged comments had “clearly deeply hurt” people.
More than a dozen former classmates told The Guardian that the Reform leader made antisemitic comments as a teenager in the 1970s and 80s, including allegedly telling Jewish students “Hitler was right” and saying “gas them”.
Other pupils from ethnic minority backgrounds accused Farage of calling them the P-word and the W-word.
Since then, a total of around 20 of Farage’s ex-classmates have come forward with allegations about his deeply offensive behaviour at school.
The attorney general told the Guardian that he found “Nigel Farage’s constantly changing story about his behaviour to his Jewish classmates [to be] unconvincing, to say the least”.
He added: “Arguing that 20 people have somehow all misremembered the same things about his nasty behaviour simply isn’t credible. Throughout his defensive responses to legitimate questions put to him, not once has Farage actually condemned antisemitism.”
In an ITV interview last week, Farage said he never abused classmates “in a hurtful or insulting way” or “engaged in direct, unpleasant personal abuse”.
The journalist described Farage’s response to the allegations as “very caveated”.
In other comments to the press, Farage has denied allegations of racism as a schoolboy, claiming that only the BAFTA-winning director Peter Ettedgui has alleged that he racially abused him at school.
However, this is not the case, as another former classmate, Cyrus Oshidar has said Farage repeatedly called him the P-word.
Another former pupil said he was directly targeted by Farage, and that the Reform leader told him to go back to where he came from.
Farage also said the allegations are “politically motivated”. However, the majority of those who have accused him of abuse are not active in party politics.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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