The UK's top law officer, one of the most senior Jewish ministers, has urged Nigel Farage to apologise to school contemporaries who assert he targeted with racist abuse them during their time at school.
Hermer remarked that Farage had "clearly deeply hurt" many people, based on their testimonies of his past behaviour. He added that the leader's "evolving" denials had been less than credible.
“During his replies to legitimate questions, not once has Farage genuinely condemned antisemitism,” Hermer told a news outlet.
A published report last month detailed the statements of more than a dozen one-time schoolmates of Farage from Dulwich College.
One, a former pupil, said that a 13-year-old Farage "would sidle up to me and utter: ‘Hitler was right’ or ‘send them to the gas chambers’, at times making a long hiss to imitate the sound of the Nazi gas chambers”.
Another pupil from an ethnic minority stated that when he was about nine, he was subjected to similar treatment by a older Farage.
“He approached a pupil with two equally tall mates and addressed anyone looking ‘other’,” the person said. “That included me on three separate times; inquiring where I was from, and pointing away, saying: ‘Go back that way,’ to wherever you said you were from.”
After the story broke, additional individuals have come forward; around two dozen people have now alleged they were either subject to or witnesses to hurtful conduct by Farage.
The behaviour they described span the period when Farage was aged 13 to 18.
The political figure has rejected that anything he did was "explicitly" racist or antisemitic, and has claimed the former classmates were being untruthful.
Observers have highlighted that Farage has failed to condemn antisemitism and other forms of racism outright in his statements.
They also reference his failure to sanction a colleague in his party, a MP, after she expressed views about the number of ethnic minorities she saw in adverts. She later expressed regret for the statements.
“His shifting account about his behaviour to his schoolmates [is] hard to believe, to say the least,” Hermer stated.
He added: “Claiming that a group of people have somehow misremembered the same things about his offensive behaviour simply isn’t credible."
“If he wants to be seen as a serious contender for high office, he must confront the concerns of the Jewish community, and say sorry to the those he has obviously deeply hurt by his behaviour,” Hermer stated.
“Bigotry in all its forms is anathema to the standards of this country and we cannot allow it to ever become normalised in politics.”
In a other comments, Rachel Reeves said Farage should “make a statement” if he wanted to look like a true statesman.
“It is very telling how very little he has to say, and the guarded phrasing that both you and I would identify as being written in a particular way to communicate, but also avoid saying certain things,” she said.
In formal correspondence before the publication of the report, Farage’s lawyers asserted that “the implication that Mr Farage ever engaged in, approved of, or led racist or antisemitic behaviour is categorically denied”.
Farage later appeared to change his explanation in an interview, remarking: “Have I said things 50 years ago that you could view as being banter, you could interpret in a modern light today in some way? Yes.”
He commented that he had “never directly attempted to go and upset anybody”. Farage afterwards issued a fresh denial: “I can tell you categorically that I did not say the things that have been published aged 13, decades in the past.”
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