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The UK's top law officer, one of the most senior Jewish ministers, has urged Nigel Farage to apologise to former schoolmates who assert he targeted with racist abuse them during their time at school.

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

“In his answers to valid inquiries, not once has Farage genuinely condemned antisemitism,” Hermer told a publication.

Fresh Claims Emerge

A recent investigation last month detailed the statements of more than a dozen one-time schoolmates of Farage from a private college.

One, a former pupil, said that a teenage Farage "would sidle up to me and growl: ‘The Nazi leader was correct’ or ‘send them to the gas chambers’, sometimes adding a long hiss to imitate the sound of the gas showers”.

Another pupil from an ethnic minority stated that when he was about nine, he was singled out by a older Farage.

“He approached a pupil flanked by two tall mates and spoke to anyone looking ‘unusual’,” the individual said. “That involved me on three separate times; asking me where I was from, and pointing away, saying: ‘That's how you get back,’ to wherever you said you were from.”

After the story broke, others have stepped forward; approximately twenty people have now alleged they were either targets of or saw highly inappropriate past behaviour by Farage.

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

Changing Stories

The Reform leader has rejected that anything he did was "blatantly" racist or antisemitic, and has claimed the accusers were not telling the truth.

Observers have highlighted that Farage has failed to condemn antisemitism and other forms of racism outright in his statements.

They also reference his inability to reprimand a party member, a MP, after she made remarks about the number of ethnic minorities she saw in television commercials. She later said sorry for the remarks.

“Nigel Farage’s constantly changing story about his behaviour to his schoolmates [is] unconvincing, to say the least,” Hermer said.

He continued: “Arguing that a group of people have all recalled incorrectly the same things about his hurtful behaviour simply lacks credibility."

Call for Leadership

“If he aspires to be seen as a serious contender for prime minister, he must address the fears of the Jewish community, and say sorry to the numerous individuals he has clearly deeply hurt by his behaviour,” Hermer concluded.

“Prejudice in all its forms is abhorrent to the standards of this country and we must not permit it to ever become legitimised in public life.”

In a other comments, the Chancellor said Farage should “say something” if he wanted to look like a true statesman.

“It speaks volumes how little he has to say, and the guarded phrasing that both you and I would recognise as being written in a particular way to say something, but also avoid saying certain things,” she remarked.

Formal Denials and Subsequent Comments

In formal correspondence prior to the publication of the investigation, Farage’s legal team claimed that “the suggestion that Mr Farage ever was involved in, approved of, or led racist or antisemitic behaviour is strongly rejected”.

Farage later altered his explanation in an discussion, saying: “Have I said things 50 years ago that you could see as being playground talk, you could interpret in a today's standards today in a certain manner? Perhaps.”

He added that he had “never directly really tried to go and upset anybody”. Farage afterwards put out a new statement: “I can tell you definitely that I did not say the things that have been reported when I was 13, decades in the past.”