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The UK's top law officer, Richard Hermer, has called on the Reform UK leader to issue an apology to school contemporaries who claim he racially abused them during their school days.

Hermer said that Farage had "undoubtedly deeply hurt" many people, based on their testimonies of his past behaviour. He noted that the leader's "constantly changing" denials had been less than credible.

“During his answers to valid inquiries, not once has Farage truly condemned antisemitism,” Hermer stated to a news outlet.

Fresh Claims Surface

A published report last month documented the accounts of over a dozen ex-pupils of Farage from a private college.

One, Peter Ettedgui, said that a teenage Farage "came up to me and utter: ‘Hitler was right’ or ‘send them to the gas chambers’, occasionally including a long hiss to imitate the sound of the gas showers”.

Another pupil from an ethnic minority claimed that when he was about nine, he was singled out by a older Farage.

“He came over to a pupil flanked by two equally tall mates and targeted anyone looking ‘different’,” the former student said. “That involved me on three separate times; asking me where I was from, and motioning, saying: ‘That's how you get back,’ to wherever you answered you were from.”

After the story broke, others have stepped forward; approximately twenty people have now claimed they were either victims of or witnesses to deeply offensive conduct by Farage.

The incidents they described span the period when Farage was aged a teenager.

Evolving Explanations

The Reform leader has denied that anything he did was "explicitly" racist or antisemitic, and has suggested the former classmates were being untruthful.

Commentators have noted that Farage has failed to condemn antisemitism and other forms of racism outright in his denials.

They also point to his reluctance to sanction a party member, Sarah Pochin, after she made remarks about the number of black and brown people she saw in television commercials. She later said sorry for the remarks.

“His evolving narrative about his behaviour to his peers [is] hard to believe, to say the least,” Hermer said.

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

Call for Leadership

“If he wishes to be seen as a credible figure for high office, he must confront the fears of the Jewish community, and say sorry to the those he has clearly deeply hurt by his behaviour,” Hermer said.

“Bigotry in all its forms is abhorrent to the principles of this country and we must not permit it to ever become normalised in public life.”

In a other comments, the Chancellor said Farage should “speak out” if he wanted to be considered a genuine leader.

“It says a lot how very little he has to say, and the precisely drafted words that both you and I would understand as being drafted in a particular way to say something, but also dodge the issue,” she remarked.

Formal Denials and Subsequent Comments

In formal correspondence before the release of the report, Farage’s lawyers claimed that “the allegation that Mr Farage ever was involved in, approved of, or led racist or antisemitic behaviour is completely refuted”.

Farage later altered his explanation in an interview, remarking: “Did I say things 50 years ago that you could interpret as being teenage humour, you could interpret in a contemporary context today in some way? Yes.”

He said that he had “never directly attempted to go and hurt anybody”. Farage subsequently released a further comment: “I can tell you unequivocally that I did not say the things that have been published aged 13, nearly 50 years ago.”