Timeline of allegations of racism against Nigel Farage and his responses

Allegations of historic racism and antisemitism have continued to pile up against Nigel Farage in recent weeks, culminating in the Reform UK leader responding with a tirade against journalists at a press conference.

Farage has repeatedly denied the allegations from his school years, saying he has never hurt anyone “with intent” and suggested those speaking out are “politically motivated”.

He also suggested some past comments may have been 70s playground “banter” that are being misinterpreted – leading opponents to accuse him of changing his story.

It is not the first time allegations of racism and antisemitism have been brought against the Clacton MP and his Reform UK party.

He has also faced recent criticism for his handling of Reform party members who have been accused of making racist comments, after MP Sarah Pochin said “it drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people” and a series of alleged offensive remarks made by the then-Reform UK leader of Staffordshire County Council.

With his Reform UK party leading the polls, and having received the biggest single donation in history to a political party of £9 million, more contemporaries say they are speaking up now about their alleged experiences because they fear Farage may become the next prime minister.

Others say his repeated denials of the hurt caused to them are encouraging them to go public.

Here’s a look back on the allegations and Farage’s responses.

2013 and 2022

Allegations from contemporaries at his school were first reported in 2013 by then-Channel 4 News reporter Michael Crick, and repeated in a book in 2022.

Crick reported seeing a 1981 letter written about Farage during his time at Dulwich College, which allegedly described him as a “publicly professed racist” and having “neo-fascist views”, while another colleague reported him marching through the street “shouting Hitler Youth songs” with friends.

Farage at the time admitted he said “ridiculous things” but “not necessarily racist things… it depends on how you define it”.

November 18, 2025

The Guardian published its first report detailing allegations from more than a dozen former pupils of Dulwich College, accusing Farage of racist and antisemitic behaviour while he was a teenager.

Peter Ettedgui, the Bafta and Emmy-award winning director who is Jewish, told the newspaper: “He would sidle up to me and growl: ‘Hitler was right’, or ‘Gas them’, sometimes adding a long hiss to simulate the sound of the gas showers.”

Another minority ethnic pupil claimed he targeted “anyone looking different”.

“That included me on three occasions; asking me where I was from, and pointing away, saying: ‘That’s the way back,’ to wherever you replied you were from,” he told the newspaper.

The article also states that other contemporaries do not recall the behaviour described by Mr Ettedgui and others.

A spokesperson said Farage was “probably mischievous” at school but denied the claims in the newspaper, calling them “allegations entirely without foundation”.

November 19

The Guardian published an interview with another former pupil, Jean-Pierre Lihou, who claimed he heard Farage making racist and antisemitic comments and singing “gas them all” at Jewish pupils. He said he’d chant ‘Oswald Mosley’ in the playground, in reference to the 1930s leader of the British Union of Fascists.

During Prime Minister’s Questions that day, the prime minister urged the Clacton MP to give an “explanation” for the reports.

November 21

Sir Keir Starmer accused Farage of being “spineless” and a “coward”, saying he had “questions to answer”. He said Farage did not have a “good track record” because he failed to take action against Reform MP Pochin’s “clearly racist” remarks.

“For the weakest prime minister in living memory to call me spineless is utterly ludicrous,” said Farage in response.

November 22

The Guardian published another story reporting that at least 20 contemporaries of Farage claim they recall such behaviour. A Reform UK spokesperson again denied the allegations, saying “it’s one word against another”.

November 24

Farage said he never engaged in racist behaviour “with intent” when challenged about the allegations in a broadcast interview.

Asked to elaborate, he replied: “No, I have never directly, really tried to go and hurt anybody.”

He added: “Have I said things 50 years ago that you could interpret as being banter in a playground that you could interpret in the modern light of day in some sort of way? Yes.

“Have I ever been part of an extremist organisation or engaged in direct, unpleasant, personal abuse, genuine abuse on that basis? No.”

Asked then if this meant he had racially abused people, Farage replied: “I’ve never directly racially abused anybody. No.”

Farage insisted several times that the allegations had happened too long ago for memories to be clear.

“I would never, ever do it in a hurtful or insulting way. It’s 49 years ago, isn’t it?” he said. “I just entered my teens. Can I remember everything that happened at school? No, I can’t.”

November 25

More school contemporaries came forward to The Guardian and the BBC, sharing their allegations, rejecting the Reform UK leader’s suggestion that it was school “banter”.

One former pupil, Cyrus Oshidar, was quoted as saying in The Guardian: “Being called a P**i isn’t hurtful?”

December 2

Former classmate Mr Ettedgui appeared on ITV’s Good Morning Britain along with another Dulwich pupil, alleging that Farage would sing “gas them all” to Jewish pupils and target “anybody who wasn’t white”.

‘I do not want to see a school bully become my prime minister,’ Peter Ettedgui tells ITV’s GMB

Another former classmate, Mr Lihou, claimed he regularly heard Farage making offensive comments to Mr Ettedgui and “anybody who wasn’t white”.

“He would go up to [them] and go ‘useless’ or ‘send them home’,” said Mr Lihou.

In response to Mr Ettedgui and Mr Lihou’s allegations, Farage told GMB: “I can categorically say that the stories being told about me from 50 years ago are not true.” He claimed they are “politically motivated”.

Mr Ettedgui said there is not a political motivation for speaking out, but a “deeply personal” one: “I do not want to see a school bully become my prime minister.”

December 4

Another former classmate, Stefan Benarroch, told ITV News that Farage was the “leader” of a group of teenagers who would allegedly wait for Jewish boys as they came out of prayers to “taunt” them.

Stefan Benarroch tells ITV News that Farage and his friends would wait outside of Jewish assembly and mimic the sound of gas hissing at them

The contemporary of Farage, who is Jewish, said he also witnessed Farage tormenting Mr Ettedgui.

“I would have been hanging out with Peter and then Nigel Farage would just come up to him in a random sort of way and say, ‘Hitler should have gassssed you all’,” he said.

“And I remember, as of course does Peter, this whole thing with the ‘s’ being the sound of the gas. It was really, really deeply unpleasant.”

Benarroch told ITV News he was choosing to speak out because he regards it as his “civic duty”.

“Watching Farage’s behaviour, close up and from a distance, is something I won’t ever forget,” he said.

At a press conference on Thursday, Farage denied he ever made racist remarks in a “malicious or nasty way”.

When challenged by BBC and ITV News correspondents over the allegations, Farage responded with a tirade against both broadcasters, accusing them of “double standards”. He suggested the organisations had in the past aired programmes which would now be considered racist.

When ITV News Political Correspondent Harry Horton put Mr Benarroch’s allegations to Farage, he interjected: “Good for you. Let’s move on to The Times, shall we… You are wasting your time.”

He repeatedly said “very good, very good” as our correspondent detailed the allegations, which Horton described as “serious”, to which Farage said: “I’m sure they are. I’m sure.”

The Reform leader began to read for a second time a letter he’d brought along, which he said was written by a Jewish ex-Dulwich College pupil who claimed Farage was “neither aggressive nor a racist”.

Farage read: “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. If he had, he would have been reported and punished. He wasn’t. The news stories are without evidence, except for belatedly, politically dubious recollections from nearly half a century ago.

“Back in the 1970s, the culture was very different… especially at Dulwich. Lots of boys said things they’d regret today or just laugh at.”

Deputy Reform leader Richard Tice earlier that day called the allegations “made-up twaddle by people who don’t want Nigel to be prime minister of the country” on BBC Radio 4.

Farage faced further allegations of using racist language over a social media video – shared that day – in which he claimed that one in three schoolchildren in Glasgow do not speak English as their first language. He referred to this as the “cultural smashing of Glasgow”.

Starmer called the Reform UK leader a “toxic, divisive disgrace” who only wants to “tear communities apart”, while Scottish First Minister John Swinney said the comments were “simply racist”.

December 5

A group of Holocaust survivors called on Farage to apologise, as The Guardian reported that 28 former pupils and teachers at Dulwich College say they witnessed racist or antisemitic behaviour by him during his school years.

One former pupil, Yinka Bankole, whose parents came to the UK from Nigeria, claimed to The Guardian that Farage told him when he was nine years old, “that’s the way back to Africa”. He claimed Farage, then 17, would wait for him by the school gates.

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.

“Let us be clear: praising Hitler, mocking gas chambers, or hurling racist abuse is not banter. Not in a playground. Not anywhere,” wrote the survivors.

They added that “honesty, reflection and commitment to truth” is the responsible response when it comes to allegations about “invoking Nazi attitudes” towards Jewish children.

“So we ask you: Did you say ‘Hitler was right’ and ‘gas them’, mimicking gas chambers? Did you subject your classmates to antisemitic abuse?

“If you deny saying those words, are you saying that 20 former classmates and teachers are lying? If you did say them, now is the time to acknowledge you were wrong, and apologise.”

The survivors who signed the letter include Hedi Argent, who fled Austria and lost 27 members of her family, and Simon Winston, who was held in a ghetto in the German-occupied Soviet Union.

A Reform UK spokesperson said: “Comments by Lord Hermer, those perpetrating these coordinated attacks on Nigel’s character, are using the presumption of guilt.

“Is this where our legal system is going and our media with it? An accusation is not a fact.”