The former head of the equalities watchdog has questioned Nigel Farage’s response to allegations of racism during his teenage years, asking why he has not offered “an unreserved apology for any distress caused”.
The Reform UK leader has faced allegations that he engaged in racist and antisemitic behaviour while he was a pupil at Dulwich College, a top private school in south London.
Speaking to Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, former Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) chair Baroness Kishwer Falkner said she was “confused and disturbed” by the allegations.
Describing the claims as “ghastly on paper”, Baroness Falkner said: “The one thing that slightly confuses me about him, and I hear his contextualisation of it all. Why can’t he just offer an unreserved apology for any distress caused?
“I just don’t get it. It seems to me that that would be the most genuine thing to say if he’s genuinely not a racist.”
Mr Farage has faced repeated questions over the allegations, which include claims that he told a Jewish pupil “Hitler was right” and “gas them”, and told a Black pupil: “That’s the way back to Africa.”
The Clacton MP has denied the allegations, variously saying they were “categorically” untrue and at other times saying he “would never, ever do it in a hurtful or insulting way”.
In a press conference last week, he continued to deny he ever made racist remarks in a “malicious or nasty way” while accusing broadcasters reporting on the claims of “double standards”.
Mr Farage repeatedly shouted the name of the controversial 1970s comedian Bernard Manning at journalists as part of a bizarre rant after he was asked about the allegations.
The comedian, the self-styled king of the offensive joke, repeatedly came under fire for the content of his act.
The Reform leader also read out a letter from another former pupil saying Mr Farage was “neither aggressive nor racist”.
Reading from the letter, he said: “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.”
Mr Farage’s former classmate, Peter Ettedgui, whose Jewish grandparents escaped Nazi Germany, is among those who have accused the politician of making racist remarks to him during their school days.
Mr Ettedgui has claimed that Mr Farage “repeatedly” approached him and said, “Hitler was right”, while they were pupils at the school.
Baroness Falkner’s intervention comes after a group of Holocaust survivors this week called on the Reform leader to apologise over the allegations.
The 11 signatories, some of whom have survived death camps, write that they “understand the danger of hateful words” and call on the Clacton MP to admit whether he said them or if he is accusing those who say he did of lying.
Zarah Sultana has also suggested on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that Your Party would team up with the Greens to keep Nigel Farage out of Downing Street at the next election. While the MP for Coventry South acknowledged that “fundamentally, we are different parties”, she said “there has to be conversations around electoral alliances”.