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The United Kingdom's attorney general, one of the most senior Jewish ministers, has demanded the Reform UK leader to issue an apology to school contemporaries who claim he targeted with racist abuse them during their years in education.

Hermer remarked that Farage had "obviously deeply hurt" many people, judging by their accounts of his actions as a youth. He noted that the politician's "constantly changing" denials had been difficult to believe.

“During his answers to legitimate questions, not once has Farage genuinely condemned antisemitism,” Hermer told a publication.

Fresh Claims Come to Light

A series of inquiries last month outlined the accounts of over a dozen one-time schoolmates of Farage from a private college.

One, a former pupil, said that a 13-year-old Farage "came up to me and growl: ‘The Nazi leader was correct’ or ‘send them to the gas chambers’, at times making a long hiss to mimic the sound of the Nazi gas chambers”.

Another pupil from an ethnic minority stated that when he was about nine, he was similarly targeted by a 17-year-old Farage.

“He walked up to a pupil with two tall mates and spoke to anyone looking ‘unusual’,” the person said. “That included me on three separate times; questioning me where I was from, and motioning, saying: ‘That's how you get back,’ to any place you answered you were from.”

After the story broke, additional individuals have come forward; around two dozen people have now stated they were either targets of or witnesses to highly inappropriate conduct by Farage.

The alleged events they described cover the period when Farage was aged a teenager.

Denials and Shifting Positions

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

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

They also reference his inability to reprimand a fellow Reform MP, Sarah Pochin, after she complained about the number of black and brown people she saw in television commercials. She later said sorry for the comments.

“Nigel Farage’s constantly changing story about his behaviour to his Jewish classmates [is] hard to believe, to say the least,” Hermer commented.

He went on to say: “Claiming that two dozen individuals have all misremembered the same things about his hurtful behaviour simply is not believable."

Demand for Accountability

“If he aspires to be seen as a legitimate candidate for the top job, he has to acknowledge the anxieties of the Jewish people, and apologise to the many people he has clearly deeply hurt by his behaviour,” Hermer concluded.

“Prejudice in all its forms is anathema to the principles of this country and we cannot allow it to ever become legitimised in public life.”

In a different discussion, Rachel Reeves said Farage should “speak out” if he wanted to look like a genuine leader.

“It says a lot how very little he has to say, and the guarded phrasing that both you and I would identify as being written in a particular way to say something, but also not to say something,” she remarked.

Legal Letters and Later Statements

In lawyers' communications before the publication of the report, Farage’s lawyers claimed that “the implication that Mr Farage ever took part in, approved of, or led such conduct is categorically denied”.

Farage later seemingly shifted his stance in an interview, stating: “Have I said things decades ago that you could interpret as being teenage humour, you could interpret in a modern light today in some way? Possibly.”

He commented that he had “not ever purposely really tried to go and hurt anybody”. Farage subsequently released a fresh denial: “I can tell you categorically that I did not say the things that have been published when I was 13, decades in the past.”