testimonies reported by the Guardian<\/a> appeared credible and that the Reform leader\u2019s response would be concerning to many.<\/p>\nFarage has issued a blanket denial that he behaved in a way that was antisemitic or racist as a teenager, including to allegations that he targeted minority-ethnic children for abuse during his time at Dulwich college, sang a \u201cGas em all\u201d song that referred to the killing of Jewish, black and south-east Asian people and burned a school roll in a year when there were said to be more Patels than Smiths.<\/p>\n
When previously faced with claims from Channel 4 in 2013 about his conduct at school, he admitted saying \u201csome ridiculous things \u2026 not necessarily racist things \u2026 it depends on how you define it\u201d.<\/p>\n
In response to the fresh allegations, a spokesperson for Reform, which is leading in the opinion polls, told the Guardian they were \u201centirely without foundation\u201d, describing them as an attempt to smear their party leader.<\/p>\n
Walney, the former Labour MP John Woodcock, who was appointed by Boris Johnson as an adviser on political violence and extremism and continued in that role under Rishi Sunak, suggested a prospective prime minister should not seek to brush off such claims.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThese detailed testimonies from Mr Farage\u2019s contemporaries appear credible and describe a degree of extremism that cannot be summarily dismissed as irrelevant simply because it was alleged to have occurred when he was a teenager.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany people will readily accept that young people can espouse offensive or extreme views that should not define their character as an adult.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey will be more concerned by the fact that Mr Farage is apparently now completely denying he ever said anything racist or antisemitic as a child, despite several public statements to the contrary from people who say they were on the receiving end of it from him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis suggests a man not at ease with his past \u2013 a troubling characteristic for someone who is seeking to govern the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Guardian spoke to more than a dozen contemporaries of Farage at Dulwich college, a public school in south London, who said they had witnessed \u201cracist\u201d behaviour by Farage.<\/p>\n
Among those was the Bafta and Emmy-award winning director Peter Ettedgui, 61, who claimed to have been verbally abused by Farage repeatedly as a 13- and 14-year-old.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe would sidle up to me and growl: \u2018Hitler was right,\u2019 or \u2018Gas them,\u2019 sometimes adding a long hiss to simulate the sound of the gas showers,\u201d Ettedgui claimed of his experience of sharing a class with Farage.<\/p>\n
Not all of the school contemporaries who spoke to the Guardian recalled racist behaviour or felt that Farage was bigoted. But a number of those who did experience such behaviour said they had been motivated to speak out by Farage\u2019s failure to show contrition about his past.<\/p>\n
The allegations were described as \u201cdisturbing\u201d by the chair of the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism.<\/p>\n
Joani Reid, a Labour MP, said: \u201cAs the chair of the APPG against antisemitism I have found these reports disturbing, and I am sure they have caused concern amongst Britain\u2019s Jewish community, which is facing an unprecedented rise in antisemitism.<\/p>\n
\u201cI cannot comment on the veracity of these claims, only on how they make me feel. I think it essential that Mr Farage makes it clear he would not tolerate anyone in his party expressing such views at any time, and that these are not views he would ever express. Neither hatred of Jews nor any other racist opinion should be tolerated in Reform or any other party in parliament.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anna Turley MP, the chair of the Labour party, said: \u201cThese are disturbing allegations, and it is vital that Nigel Farage<\/a> now urgently explains himself. We have seen Farage\u2019s weakness in the face of the divisive politics in Reform\u2019s ranks. They are dragging our politics to a dark place.<\/p>\n\u201cThis Labour government stands for our patriotic British values of decency and tolerance, and importantly unity \u2013 we are building a Britain for us all.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson, Max Wilkinson, said: \u201cA lot of people say stupid and offensive things at school, but most grow out of it. Sadly, in Nigel Farage\u2019s case he\u2019s made a career out of it instead.\u201d<\/p>\n
Georgina Laming, the director of campaigns at Hope Not Hate, said: \u201cThese revelations are sadly no surprise. Nigel Farage has consistently expressed anti-immigrant and intolerant views and shown voters who he really is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keir Starmer has called on Nigel Farage to explain himself after the Reform leader wholesale denied numerous detailed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-271708","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}