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The UK's attorney general, Richard Hermer, has called on Nigel Farage to issue an apology to school contemporaries who assert he racially abused them during their time at school.

Hermer said that Farage had "clearly deeply hurt" many people, judging by their descriptions of his past behaviour. He noted that the politician's "shifting" explanations had been difficult to believe.

“In his defensive responses to valid inquiries, not once has Farage actually condemned antisemitism,” Hermer told a publication.

Fresh Claims Emerge

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

One, Peter Ettedgui, said that a teenage Farage "would approach me and say: ‘The Nazi leader was correct’ or ‘send them to the gas chambers’, sometimes adding a long hiss to simulate the sound of the Nazi gas chambers”.

Another pupil from an ethnic minority claimed that when he was about nine, he was similarly targeted by a older Farage.

“He walked up to a pupil with two tall mates and targeted anyone looking ‘other’,” the person said. “That happened to me on three occasions; inquiring where I was from, and gesturing, saying: ‘Go back that way,’ to wherever you answered you were from.”

After the story broke, others have stepped forward; about 20 people have now claimed they were either targets of or witnesses to highly inappropriate past behaviour by Farage.

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

Evolving Explanations

The political figure has rejected that anything he did was "blatantly" racist or antisemitic, and has suggested the former classmates were being untruthful.

Critics have noted that Farage has neglected to condemn antisemitism and other forms of racism in a wider sense in his responses.

They also cite his reluctance to discipline a party member, Sarah Pochin, after she made remarks about the number of ethnic minorities she saw in adverts. She later said sorry for the remarks.

“His shifting account about his behaviour to his Jewish classmates [is] hard to believe, to say the least,” Hermer said.

He continued: “Suggesting that two dozen individuals have all recalled incorrectly the same things about his hurtful behaviour simply is not believable."

Call for Leadership

“If he aspires to be seen as a credible figure for high office, he urgently needs address the concerns of the Jewish people, and apologise to the numerous individuals he has clearly deeply hurt by his behaviour,” Hermer stated.

“Racism in all its forms is anathema to the values of this country and we must not permit it to ever become legitimised in society.”

In a separate interview, the Chancellor said Farage should “say something” 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 recognise as being written in a certain style to communicate, but also avoid saying certain things,” she noted.

Formal Denials and Subsequent Comments

In lawyers' communications before the release of the report, Farage’s legal team asserted that “the suggestion that Mr Farage ever took part in, condoned, or led such conduct is strongly rejected”.

Farage later altered his position in an interview, remarking: “Did I say things decades ago that you could see as being playground talk, you could interpret in a today's standards today in a certain manner? Yes.”

He commented that he had “not ever purposely sought to go and harm anybody”. Farage subsequently released a new statement: “I can tell you categorically that I did not say the things that have been published aged 13, nearly 50 years ago.”