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The United Kingdom's top law officer, one of the most senior Jewish ministers, has urged the Reform UK leader to issue an apology to school contemporaries who assert he racially abused them during their years in education.

Hermer stated that Farage had "clearly deeply hurt" many people, judging by their testimonies of his past behaviour. He added that the politician's "shifting" explanations had been difficult to believe.

“Throughout his defensive responses to legitimate questions, not once has Farage truly condemned antisemitism,” Hermer told a news outlet.

Fresh Claims Emerge

A series of inquiries last month outlined the accounts of several former classmates of Farage from a south London school.

One, Peter Ettedgui, recalled that a 13-year-old Farage "came up to me and say: ‘Hitler was right’ or ‘gas them’, sometimes adding a long hiss to imitate the sound of the gas showers”.

Another pupil from an ethnic minority alleged that when he was roughly nine years old, he was singled out by a older Farage.

“He approached a pupil with two similarly tall mates and targeted anyone looking ‘other’,” the individual said. “That happened to me on three separate times; inquiring where I was from, and pointing away, saying: ‘That's how you get back,’ to any place you answered you were from.”

Following the initial report, others have emerged; approximately twenty people have now stated they were either subject to or witnesses to highly inappropriate conduct by Farage.

The behaviour they described relate to the period when Farage was aged a teenager.

Changing Stories

The Reform leader has rejected that anything he did was "explicitly" racist or antisemitic, and has claimed the individuals were not telling the truth.

Observers have highlighted that Farage has not managed to condemn antisemitism and other forms of racism in a wider sense in his statements.

They also reference his inability to reprimand a colleague in his party, a MP, after she expressed views about the number of people of colour she saw in adverts. She later apologised for the comments.

“His evolving narrative about his behaviour to his peers [is] not credible, to say the least,” Hermer stated.

He went on to say: “Arguing that a group of people have somehow recalled incorrectly the same things about his hurtful behaviour simply isn’t credible."

Call for Leadership

“If he aspires to be seen as a serious contender for the top job, he urgently needs confront the fears of the Jewish community, and say sorry to the numerous individuals he has obviously deeply hurt by his behaviour,” Hermer said.

“Racism in all its forms is completely opposed to the values of this country and we must not permit it to ever become legitimised in politics.”

In a other comments, a senior politician said Farage should “make a statement” if he wanted to look like 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 identify as being drafted in a specific manner to communicate, but also avoid saying certain things,” she said.

Legal Letters and Later Statements

In lawyers' communications before the publication of the investigation, Farage’s legal team asserted that “the implication that Mr Farage ever engaged in, condoned, or led racist or antisemitic behaviour is strongly rejected”.

Farage later appeared to change his stance in an discussion, saying: “Did I say things decades ago that you could view as being banter, you could interpret in a today's standards today in some way? Possibly.”

He commented that he had “not once intentionally attempted to go and harm 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.”