Top Law Officer Demands Nigel Farage to Say Sorry Over Reported Antisemitic and Racist Behaviour.

The UK's top law officer, Richard Hermer, has demanded the Reform UK leader to apologise to school contemporaries who allege he racially abused them during their time at school.

Hermer said that Farage had "clearly deeply hurt" many people, according to their accounts of his actions as a youth. He added that the politician's "constantly changing" statements had been unconvincing.

“During his defensive responses to valid inquiries, not once has Farage actually condemned antisemitism,” Hermer told a news outlet.

Further Testimonies Emerge

A series of inquiries last month outlined the statements of more than a dozen ex-pupils of Farage from a south London school.

One, Peter Ettedgui, described that a teenage Farage "would sidle up to me and growl: ‘Hitler was right’ or ‘send them to the gas chambers’, sometimes adding a long hiss to simulate the sound of the Nazi gas chambers”.

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

“He came over to a pupil with two similarly tall mates and spoke to anyone looking ‘other’,” the person said. “That involved me on three separate times; asking me where I was from, and pointing away, saying: ‘That’s the way back,’ to any place you replied you were from.”

After the story broke, additional individuals have emerged; about 20 people have now stated they were either targets of or witnesses to deeply offensive conduct by Farage.

The incidents they recounted relate to the period when Farage was aged a teenager.

Changing Stories

The political figure has rejected that anything he did was "explicitly" racist or antisemitic, and has asserted the accusers were not telling the truth.

Commentators have pointed out that Farage has neglected to condemn antisemitism and other forms of racism in a wider sense in his denials.

They also cite his failure to reprimand a colleague in his party, a MP, after she made remarks about the number of people of colour she saw in television commercials. She later apologised for the statements.

“His constantly changing story about his behaviour to his schoolmates [is] hard to believe, to say the least,” Hermer stated.

He added: “Arguing that a group of people have somehow misremembered the same things about his offensive behaviour simply is not believable."

Question of Character

“If he aspires to be seen as a legitimate candidate for the top job, he has to acknowledge the fears of the Jewish community, and apologise to the numerous individuals he has obviously deeply hurt by his behaviour,” Hermer concluded.

“Bigotry in all its forms is anathema to the values of this country and we cannot allow it to ever become normalised in public life.”

In a separate interview, the Chancellor said Farage should “speak out” if he wanted to look like a genuine leader.

“It says a lot how little he has to say, and the precisely drafted words that both you and I would understand as being written in a specific manner to communicate, but also dodge the issue,” she noted.

Legal Letters and Later Statements

In legal letters prior to the release of the report, Farage’s lawyers asserted that “the allegation that Mr Farage ever was involved in, supported, or led this behaviour is strongly rejected”.

Farage later appeared to change his stance in an interview, remarking: “Have I said things as a youth that you could interpret as being playground talk, you could interpret in a modern light today in a certain manner? Yes.”

He said that he had “not once intentionally really tried to go and harm anybody”. Farage later released a new statement: “I can tell you definitely that I did not say the things that have been published as a 13-year-old, decades in the past.”