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The UK's attorney general, Richard Hermer, has urged the Reform UK leader to apologise to former schoolmates who allege he targeted with racist abuse them during their years in education.

Hermer said that Farage had "clearly deeply hurt" many people, based on their accounts of his alleged conduct. He commented that the leader's "evolving" statements had been unconvincing.

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

New Allegations Emerge

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

One, Peter Ettedgui, said that a teenage Farage "would approach me and say: ‘Hitler was right’ or ‘gas them’, at times making a long hiss to mimic the sound of the gas showers”.

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

“He approached a pupil accompanied by two equally tall mates and spoke to anyone looking ‘different’,” the person said. “That involved me on three occasions; inquiring where I was from, and gesturing, saying: ‘That’s the way back,’ to any place you said you were from.”

Following the initial report, additional individuals have come forward; around two dozen people have now stated they were either victims of or observed deeply offensive actions by Farage.

The behaviour they recounted span the period when Farage was aged between 13 and 18.

Evolving Explanations

The political figure has disputed that anything he did was "explicitly" racist or antisemitic, and has suggested the individuals were misremembering.

Critics have highlighted that Farage has not managed to condemn antisemitism and other forms of racism outright in his statements.

They also point to his inability to discipline a party member, a MP, after she made remarks about the number of ethnic minorities she saw in adverts. 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 commented.

He went on to say: “Claiming that two dozen individuals have all misremembered the same things about his nasty behaviour simply lacks credibility."

Question of Character

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

“Prejudice in all its forms is abhorrent to the values of this country and we cannot allow it to ever become normalised in society.”

In a other comments, Rachel Reeves said Farage should “say something” if he wanted to be considered a genuine leader.

“It speaks volumes how very little he has to say, and the guarded phrasing that both you and I would understand as being written in a certain style to communicate, but also not to say something,” she said.

Legal Letters and Later Statements

In formal correspondence prior to the publication of the investigation, Farage’s legal team asserted that “the suggestion that Mr Farage ever engaged in, supported, or led such conduct is categorically denied”.

Farage later appeared to change his explanation in an appearance, remarking: “Have I said things decades ago that you could see as being playground talk, you could interpret in a contemporary context today in some sort of way? Possibly.”

He said that he had “not ever purposely sought to go and upset anybody”. Farage subsequently released a new statement: “I can tell you categorically that I did not say the things that have been published when I was 13, so long ago.”