UK reform leader Nigel Farage has insisted he has “never racially abused anyone directly”, following complaints from 20 people he went to school with.
A Guardian investigation spoke to contemporaries at Dulwich College who made allegations that Farage made racist and anti-Semitic comments to them, which a spokesperson denied.
Speaking directly to a journalist about the allegations for the first time, Farage, 61, was pressed on what he meant by “directly” and responded: “Taking it out on an individual based on who they are or what they are.”
He also ruled out carrying out an investigation into his own party, following the jailing of former Welsh Reform UK leader Nathan Gill for accepting Russian bribes.
Among the allegations in The Guardian are that Farage joked about the gas chambers and detained another student, when he was a prefect, because of the color of his skin.
When asked about the claims, Farage responded: “Have I said things 50 years ago that could be interpreted as playground banter, that can be interpreted in a modern light in some way? Yes.”
He added: “I have never directly racially abused anyone. No.”
Pointing to “political disagreements” with some of his school mates, Farage also denied having “ever been part of an extremist organization or having engaged in direct and unpleasant personal abuse, genuine abuse, on that basis”.
Asked if he would say categorically that he did not racially abuse his colleagues, Farage said: “I would never, ever do it in a hurtful or insulting way.”
When asked if maybe he had said things to his teammates that he didn’t mean to be hurtful or racist, but they took it that way, he said, “I hope not.”
And when asked if he had said things at school that might have offended people, he replied: “Without a doubt.
“And without a doubt I will say things tonight on this stage that some people will be offended and use pejorative terms.
“That’s kind of what open freedom of expression is. Sometimes you say things that people don’t like.”
Asked if he would apologize to people who claimed he had been racist towards them, Farage responded: “No, I’m not, because I don’t think I’ve done anything that directly hurt anyone.”
Farage, who was an MEP from 1999 to 2020, and UKIP leader from 2006 to 2009 and 2010 to 2016, was also questioned about his former UKIP colleague Nathan Gill, who was jailed for ten and a half years last Friday after admitting to accepting bribes to make pro-Russian interviews and statements when he was an MEP.
Gill was first elected to Brussels as a UKIP MEP in 2014, became a Brexit Party MEP in 2019, remained with the party when it became Reform UK, and became leader of Wales in 2021, although he failed to be re-elected soon after.
Speaking at a Reform UK rally in Llandudno, north Wales, Farage said Gill was “briefly… leader of Reform Wales”.
The fact that Gill accepted bribes “is, of course, an absolute and total disgrace,” he said.
“We repudiate his actions and we repudiate what he has done in every way.”
In a separate interview, Farage was asked if he needed to investigate other Russian links within his party, but said: “I’m not a police force, I don’t have the resources.”
He added that he thought there should be a wider investigation into Russian and Chinese interference in British politics, suggesting it should be carried out by MI5.
Farage said he was as sure “as I can be” that no one else in Reform past or present had done similar things to the former Reform Wales leader, calling the issue “a very minor embarrassment for Reform”.
He said: “I’m very surprised by Gill – he was in UKIP for a long, long time – although his time at Reform was very, very short…
“I haven’t had any engagement with him and no one on my leadership team has had any engagement with him at all.”
Asked if that meant he couldn’t rule out people in the party who may have spoken to him since his arrest, he added: “No one in authority.”
Liberal Democrat president-elect MP Josh Babarinde said: “The Reform leader’s refusal to deny he made these racist comments is unbecoming of someone who wants to be our next prime minister.
“The British people deserve a straight answer.
“It seems the mask has fallen and Farage is actually turning into Nigel with no answers.”
Labor accused Nigel Farage of claiming that “people can be racially abused without it being hurtful and insulting”.
Lord Mike Katz, a Labor peer and former president of the Jewish Labor Movement, called on Farage to “come clean” to the claims and said “failure to do so would be further evidence that Farage is simply unfit for office.”
He said: “Just when you thought Nigel Farage couldn’t sink any lower, he’s trying to say that abhorrent racist comments, including vile anti-Semitic slurs, don’t matter.
“You seem to think you can racially abuse people without it being hurtful and insulting. Let’s be very clear: you can’t.”
