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The UK's attorney general, one of the most senior Jewish ministers, has urged Nigel Farage to issue an apology to school contemporaries who assert he racially abused them during their school days.

Hermer said that Farage had "clearly deeply hurt" many people, based on their accounts of his past behaviour. He commented that the politician's "shifting" denials had been less than credible.

“In his answers to valid inquiries, not once has Farage actually condemned antisemitism,” Hermer stated to a publication.

Fresh Claims Emerge

A recent investigation last month outlined the testimony of over a dozen former classmates of Farage from a private college.

One, a former pupil, said that a teenage Farage "came up to me and say: ‘The Nazi leader was correct’ or ‘gas them’, sometimes adding a long hiss to mimic the sound of the gas showers”.

Another student of colour claimed that when he was roughly nine years old, he was singled out by a older Farage.

“He walked up to a pupil accompanied by two similarly tall mates and spoke to anyone looking ‘unusual’,” the individual said. “That included me on three separate times; questioning me where I was from, and pointing away, saying: ‘Go back that way,’ to any place you replied you were from.”

After the story broke, additional individuals have emerged; around two dozen people have now claimed they were either subject to or witnesses to deeply offensive past behaviour by Farage.

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

Evolving Explanations

The Reform leader has disputed that anything he did was "explicitly" racist or antisemitic, and has suggested the accusers were misremembering.

Critics have highlighted that Farage has neglected to condemn antisemitism and other forms of racism more broadly in his denials.

They also cite his reluctance to reprimand a party member, a MP, after she complained about the number of people of colour she saw in television commercials. She later expressed regret for the comments.

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

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

Call for Leadership

“If he wishes to be seen as a serious contender for prime minister, he must confront the anxieties of the Jewish community, and apologise to the numerous individuals he has obviously deeply hurt by his behaviour,” Hermer said.

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

In a different discussion, a senior politician said Farage should “make a statement” if he wanted to appear as a true statesman.

“It is very telling how very little he has to say, and the precisely drafted words that both you and I would identify as being written in a certain style to communicate, but also not to say something,” she said.

Formal Denials and Subsequent Comments

In lawyers' communications prior to the publication of the report, Farage’s representatives claimed that “the allegation that Mr Farage ever engaged in, condoned, or led this behaviour is completely refuted”.

Farage later appeared to change his stance in an discussion, saying: “Have I said things decades ago that you could interpret as being playground talk, you could interpret in a contemporary context today in a certain manner? Perhaps.”

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