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The United Kingdom's attorney general, one of the most senior Jewish ministers, has urged 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 said that Farage had "clearly deeply hurt" many people, based on their accounts of his alleged conduct. He added that the politician's "evolving" explanations had been unconvincing.

“Throughout his answers to valid inquiries, not once has Farage actually condemned antisemitism,” Hermer told a news outlet.

New Allegations Emerge

A published report last month detailed the accounts of over a dozen one-time schoolmates of Farage from a private college.

One, a former pupil, described that a 13-year-old Farage "would sidle up to me and growl: ‘The Nazi leader was correct’ or ‘gas them’, occasionally including a long hiss to imitate the sound of the gas showers”.

Another minority ethnic pupil alleged that when he was about nine, he was singled out by a 17-year-old Farage.

“He came over to a pupil with two equally tall mates and targeted anyone looking ‘unusual’,” the individual said. “That happened to me on three separate times; questioning me where I was from, and motioning, saying: ‘That's how you get back,’ to wherever you answered you were from.”

After the story broke, more people have emerged; approximately twenty people have now alleged they were either subject to or witnesses to deeply offensive past behaviour by Farage.

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

Denials and Shifting Positions

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

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

They also cite his inability to sanction a colleague in his party, a MP, after she made remarks about the number of ethnic minorities she saw in adverts. She later said sorry for the statements.

“Nigel Farage’s evolving narrative about his behaviour to his Jewish classmates [is] unconvincing, to say the least,” Hermer stated.

He continued: “Arguing that 20 people have somehow misremembered the same things about his nasty behaviour simply lacks credibility."

Demand for Accountability

“If he wants to be seen as a legitimate candidate for prime minister, he urgently needs acknowledge the anxieties of the Jewish people, and say sorry to the those he has obviously deeply hurt by his behaviour,” Hermer said.

“Racism in all its forms is anathema to the values of this country and we should not let it to ever become normalised in society.”

In a separate interview, Rachel Reeves said Farage should “make a statement” if he wanted to be considered a real leader.

“It says a lot how 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 not to say something,” she said.

Formal Denials and Subsequent Comments

In lawyers' communications before the publication of the investigation, Farage’s lawyers asserted that “the allegation that Mr Farage ever was involved in, condoned, or led this behaviour is categorically denied”.

Farage later altered his explanation in an discussion, stating: “Did I say things as a youth that you could interpret as being playground talk, you could interpret in a today's standards today in some way? Possibly.”

He added that he had “never directly attempted to go and harm anybody”. Farage afterwards released a new statement: “I can tell you categorically that I did not say the things that have been printed when I was 13, decades in the past.”