Nigel Farage has turned on broadcasters for questioning him about his alleged teenage racism and anti-Semitism as the number of school contemporaries who recalled such behaviour reached 28.
In an angry performance at a press conference in London, the Reform UK leader suggested he would boycott the BBC and said ITV had its own case to answer, as he repeatedly shouted “Bernard Manning”.
Mr Manning, a comedian from Manchester who died in 2007, was a regular face on British television in the 1970s but he drifted from the public eye after claims that his material was racist and misogynistic.
The intemperate performance by Mr Farage, whose party has slipped in the polls in recent weeks, came as a further five school contemporaries came forward to the Guardian with allegations that they had witnessed deeply offensive racist or anti-Semitic behaviour by him.
The former Dulwich college pupils said they had been motivated to speak now by the response of Mr Farage and others in his party to an investigation by the Guardian based on multiple accounts of racism.
Reform’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, accused all of those who had made the claims of lying.
These included Peter Ettedgui (61), an Emmy- and Bafta-winning director, who recalled Farage repeatedly growling “Hitler was right” or “Gas them” at him when they were at school.
However, Nick Hearn, a banker who described himself as “a conservative with a small C”, told the Guardian he had regularly seen Mr Ettedgui being abused by the now Reform leader, and he called on Mr Farage to “come clean”.
Far from being “banter”, as Mr Farage has previously described some of his remarks, Mr Hearn called it “personal [and] vindictive”. Mr Hearn is the eighth pupil to offer corroboration of Ettedgui’s claims.
He said: “[Mr Farage] was consistent and he was persistent. Peter and I used to have lunch together in the sort of cloisters, a thoroughfare between the main buildings. There were people going backwards and forwards all the time, and I witnessed on multiple occasions sort of little snide comments and personal, vindictive, racist comments.
“He had a reputation in school for being a racist. I think he should come clean about his inappropriate behaviour as a young man and apologise.
“People will make up their own opinion, of course, but I just think that it wasn’t idle kids’ banter. It was targeted and highly racist.”
Mark Bridges, who was in Mr Farage’s year, said he also remembered Mr Farage as “a racist bully”. He said: “I remember Peter Ettedgui, and I remember him being tormented” and targeted by Farage.
The Guardian has previously reported on the claims of Andy Field, an NHS doctor, who said he recalled Mr Farage burning a school roll in a year in which there were more Patels than Smiths.
Richard Flowers came forward to say he also recalled Mr Farage’s response to the number of boys named Patel being higher than Smiths.
He said: “I remember him coming up to us holding the yearbook, which was like a pamphlet, and holding it open and sort of stabbing his finger at the name, saying ‘look, look, look, the most common name in this school has always been Smith. And now it’s Patel. It’s Patel,’ sort of thing, and sort of stabbing his finger at it.”
The Guardian has obtained a copy of the school roll for 1980, which shows that there were 12 Smiths and 13 Patels.
A further former pupil of Asian background added his voice, claiming Mr Farage was an open racist and would say “Enoch Powell was right” to him as a form of what he described as “racial intimidation”.
He recalled an assembly held soon before Mr Farage left Dulwich college. “I remember a full upper school assembly in which the headmaster was reading from a list of names of boys whose parents had failed to return some forms,” he said.
“When the name Patel was read out, Farage shouted out aggressively to draw attention to himself. His intervention was loud and disruptive. The headmaster paused and looked up. This happened again and only with the name Patel. We were sitting in the same row and I saw him do this.” He said this happened when Mr Farage was 18.
The former pupil said Mr Farage would shout out to draw attention to the name as foreign or not English, and that he appeared “obsessed with Patels”.
A further former pupil, who was in Mr Farage’s year, claimed that while in the final year when Mr Farage was aged 17 or 18 he remembered Mr Farage would make gas hissing noises at a Jewish boy, who was not Ettedgui.
He said: “He would make these gas hissing noises. He had this fascination with Hitler and the whole kind of Third Reich thing. And he had this fascination with basically gassing Jews. And he, as I say, whenever this lad went in to the class, he would make these hissing noises.”
When the Guardian first contacted Reform about allegations made by then a dozen school contemporaries, Mr Farage’s lawyer said: “The suggestion that Mr Farage ever engaged in, condoned, or led racist or anti-Semitic behaviour is categorically denied.”
He later admitted he may have said things in “banter” at school that could be viewed differently today but denied saying anything racist or anti-Semitic “directly” at an individual.
On Thursday, Mr Farage denied saying anything racist “with malice” but appeared to lose his temper as questions were asked about the allegations.
Mr Tice had earlier been questioned by the BBC’s Emma Barnett, who pressed the politician on Mr Farage’s “relationship with Hitler”.
Mr Farage said he would no longer speak to the BBC, calling it “despicable” and “beyond belief”.
Describing Ms Barnett as one of the BBC’s “lower-grade presenters”, he criticised the way she asked the question and then attacked the BBC for showing programmes in the 1970s and 1980s that would be viewed as racist today.
Citing television shows including Are You Being Served? and It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, Mr Farage accused the BBC of “double standards and hypocrisy”. He said: “I want an apology from the BBC for virtually everything you did throughout the 1970s and 80s.”
He went on to read out a letter he said he had received from a former schoolmate at Dulwich college, which said that while Mr Farage had been “offensive” he did not recall him as racist.
Mr Farage read: “I was a Jewish pupil at Dulwich college at the same time and I remember him very well. While there was plenty of macho tongue-in-cheek schoolboy banter, it was humour, and yes, sometimes it was offensive … but never with malice. I never heard him racially abuse anyone.
“If he had, he would have been reported and punished. He wasn’t. The news stories are without evidence, except for belatedly, politically dubious recollections from nearly half a century ago. Back in the 1970s the culture was very different … especially at Dulwich. Lots of boys said things they’d regret today or just laugh at. Whilst Nigel stood out, he was neither aggressive nor a racist.”
Pressed on whether the allegations about racist comments were events that really happened but his classmates had experienced them in a different way, Mr Farage said: “Recollections may vary.”
Speaking in Glasgow, UK prime minister Keir Starmer said Mr Farage was a “a toxic, divisive disgrace” after the Reform leader said in a campaign video that Glasgow was experiencing a “cultural smashing” as nearly one in three pupils in the city spoke English as a second language.
Mr Starmer, who was making an appearance alongside the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, said: “All he wants to do is tear communities apart. In Glasgow, the diversity, the compassion, is celebrated. It’s part of, not just of Glasgow, but Scotland. I am proud that that is part of what Scotland is.” - The Guardian
