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The United Kingdom's attorney general, Richard Hermer, has urged Nigel Farage to issue an apology to former schoolmates who assert he racially abused them during their years in education.

Hermer said that Farage had "obviously deeply hurt" many people, based on their testimonies of his past behaviour. He noted that the leader's "shifting" denials had been less than credible.

“Throughout his replies to valid inquiries, not once has Farage genuinely condemned antisemitism,” Hermer stated to a news outlet.

New Allegations Emerge

A series of inquiries last month outlined the accounts of more than a dozen former classmates of Farage from Dulwich College.

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

Another pupil from an ethnic minority stated that when he was roughly nine years old, he was subjected to similar treatment by a older Farage.

“He approached a pupil with two similarly tall mates and addressed anyone looking ‘other’,” the person said. “That happened to me on three separate times; questioning me where I was from, and pointing away, saying: ‘Go back that way,’ to any place you answered you were from.”

Following the initial report, others have emerged; approximately twenty people have now stated they were either targets of or witnesses to deeply offensive past behaviour by Farage.

The incidents they outlined span the period when Farage was aged 13 to 18.

Changing Stories

The Reform leader has rejected that anything he did was "directly" racist or antisemitic, and has asserted the former classmates were misremembering.

Critics have highlighted that Farage has failed to condemn antisemitism and other forms of racism in a wider sense in his denials.

They also cite his inability to reprimand a fellow Reform MP, a MP, after she complained about the number of people of colour she saw in television commercials. She later said sorry for the comments.

“His constantly changing story about his behaviour to his Jewish classmates [is] not credible, to say the least,” Hermer commented.

He went on to say: “Suggesting that two dozen individuals have all recalled incorrectly the same things about his nasty behaviour simply isn’t credible."

Call for Leadership

“If he wishes to be seen as a credible figure for high office, he has to address the concerns of the Jewish community, and apologise to the those he has obviously deeply hurt by his behaviour,” Hermer stated.

“Racism in all its forms is completely opposed to the standards of this country and we cannot allow it to ever become normalised in society.”

In a other comments, the Chancellor said Farage should “speak out” if he wanted to appear as a genuine leader.

“It speaks volumes how very little he has to say, and the very careful language that both you and I would recognise as being written in a specific manner to communicate, but also avoid saying certain things,” she remarked.

Formal Denials and Subsequent Comments

In lawyers' communications before the publication of the report, Farage’s legal team claimed that “the implication that Mr Farage ever engaged in, supported, or led this behaviour is categorically denied”.

Farage later seemingly shifted his stance in an discussion, 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? Perhaps.”

He said that he had “not ever purposely sought to go and upset anybody”. Farage later released a further comment: “I can tell you unequivocally that I did not say the things that have been published when I was 13, nearly 50 years ago.”