8 h. ago Keir Starmer brands Nigel Farage a 'toxic disgrace' over Glasgow pupils comments

The Prime Minister tore into the Reform UK leader who had spoken of the "cultural smashing of Glasgow.”

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9 h. ago Ben Jennings on the racism allegations surrounding Nigel Farage’s schooldays – cartoon

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13 h. ago John Swinney slams Nigel Farage’s remarks on Glasgow schoolchildren as 'racist'

John Swinney condemned Nigel Farage after the Reform UK leader claimed one in three Glasgow schoolchildren do not speak English as a first language, calling the remarks “simply racist”.

Politics

13 h. ago Nigel Farage’s comments on Glasgow schoolchildren ‘simply racist’ – John Swinney

The comments came after Mr Farage posted a video to social media.

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37 h. ago Nigel Farage says immigrants are 'culturally smashing' Glasgow

Nigel Farage made the comments ahead of a visit to Scotland this weekend,

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64 h. ago David Lammy tells of ‘traumatic’ racial abuse in youth after Farage allegations

Deputy PM contrasts apologies from former classmates to Reform UK leader’s response to claims against himDavid Lammy has spoken of his own “traumatic” experience of being racially abused at school as he called on Nigel Farage to apologise for comments he allegedly made while a teenager.Lammy, the deputy prime minister and justice secretary, said the testimony of more than 20 of the Reform leader’s school contemporaries of his racist and antisemitic behaviour was “deeply troubling”. Continue reading...

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3 d. ago Nigel Farage urged to apologise over alleged schoolboy racism by UK's top lawyer

Richard Hermer, the Attorney General, who is Jewish, said Nigel Farage's alleged comments had 'clearly deeply hurt' people and called for him to apologise

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5 d. ago Protests outside hotels housing asylum seekers are racist says John Swinney

"Many of the people who are participating in these protests against the asylum seeker hotels are people who are spreading racist hate in our country."

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6 d. ago Antisemitism allegations against the teenage Farage matter – look at what he went on to do | Jonathan Freedland

Farage has cosied up to US figures who espoused conspiracy theories about Jews. That kind of talk is becoming alarmingly mainstream on the Maga right Nigel Farage could have strangled this story at birth. Confronted with the testimony of more than 20 former schoolmates, who shared with the Guardian their memories of a young Farage taunting Jews and other minorities in the most appalling terms – telling a Jewish pupil that “Hitler was right”, singing “Gas ’em all” and making a hissing sound to simulate lethal gas – he could have said: “I have no memory of what’s been described, but such behaviour would of course have been atrocious and if I was involved in any way, I am genuinely sorry.”Sure, it would have been more of an “ifpology” than an apology, its admission of guilt wholly conditional, but it would surely have closed the story down. Reassured that the Reform UK leader had declared racist and antisemitic abuse unacceptable, most observers would have allowed that these events too...

Politics

9 d. ago Nigel Farage ‘categorically’ denies racially abusing fellow students at school

The Reform UK leader suggested there could be political motivations behind the claims

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9 d. ago Don’t believe Nigel Farage’s denials. He targeted me for being Jewish – and it hurt | Peter Ettedgui

Now that my former classmate has finally spoken about the allegations of his behaviour at school, I feel compelled to address his points directly I had thought my Dulwich days were well behind me and that I’d never again have to think about the antisemitic taunts I suffered from Nigel Farage at school. Then at some point in the late 2000s, a friend sent me a YouTube video of the then Ukip leader haranguing EU commissioners.The instant I saw Farage, my blood froze. All I could think of was his 13-year-old self sidling up to me, growling the words “Hitler was right” and other odious remarks (“To the gas chambers”, “Gas them – ssssssssss”) which he now refers to, rather quaintly, as banter. The verb “trigger” is perhaps overused, but it’s the only word I can think of to describe the stomach-churning emotions I felt in that moment I laid eyes on him again on YouTube.Peter Ettedgui is a Bafta- and Emmy-winning director and producer. Continue reading...

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9 d. ago Nigel Farage describes schoolboy racism claims as ‘banter in a playground’ and says he never ‘tried to hurt anybody’

The Reform UK leader was accused of making racist and antisemitic comments to classmates while at Dulwich College but said he never did so ‘with intent’

Events

1 week ago ‘Never in a hurtful or insulting way’: Nigel Farage responds to schoolboy racism claims

It comes after the Reform UK leader was accused of making racist and antisemitic comments to classmates during his school days

Events

1 week ago Tense Nigel Farage skewered in TV clash as he breaks silence on racism allegations

Former classmates from Dulwich College alleged that Nigel Farage made pro-Hitler comments, joked about gas chambers, and put someone in detention for the colour of their skin

Events

1 week ago I endured an English public school. But that’s not the only reason I’m unsurprised about the Farage allegations |

Let’s put aside the schooldays accusations and look, instead, at the Reform leader’s path since then. I think a pretty clear picture of the man emerges When I see the allegations of racism against Nigel Farage from his schooldays, I can’t say I am greatly surprised. There are those who believe that the Reform UK leader’s persona must have been developed to win over working-class voters, or the “red wall”. I know that it is quite in keeping with the sentiments expressed by plenty of young men in elite institutions like English public schools – the kind of men who run the world.Farage was educated at Dulwich college from 1975 to 1982; there, fellow students have told the Guardian, he allegedly used racist insults about fellow pupils and sang a song with the lyrics “Gas ’em all”. I attended Eton a couple of decades later, but the attitudes of some of the people I encountered there were not very different. One pupil, having fallen out with me over some perceived slight, boasted that his...

Politics

1 week ago I endured an English public school. But that’s not the only reason I’m unsurprised about the Farage allegations | Musa Okwonga

Let’s put aside the schooldays accusations and look, instead, at the Reform leader’s path since then. I think a pretty clear picture of the man emerges When I see the allegations of racism against Nigel Farage from his schooldays, I can’t say I am greatly surprised. There are those who believe that the Reform UK leader’s persona must have been developed to win over working-class voters, or the “red wall”. I know that it is quite in keeping with the sentiments expressed by plenty of young men in elite institutions like English public schools – the kind of men who run the world.Farage was educated at Dulwich college from 1975 to 1982; there, fellow students have told the Guardian, he allegedly used racist insults about fellow pupils and sang a song with the lyrics “Gas ’em all”. I attended Eton a couple of decades later, but the attitudes of some of the people I encountered there were not very different. One pupil, having fallen out with me over some perceived slight, boasted that his...

Politics

2 w. ago The Guardian view on Nigel Farage’s youthful views: the past still matters | Editorial

Voters need to know if a party leader said racist things at school. Interviewers have a duty to keep pressing for fuller factsFor one contemporary, it is the hectoring tone of today that evokes what it was like to be at school with Nigel Farage. “He would sidle up to me and growl: ‘Hitler was right’ or ‘Gas them’,” Peter Ettedgui recalls when asked about life at fee-paying Dulwich College in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Later, he adds: “I’d hear him calling other students ‘Paki’ or ‘Wog’ and urging them to ‘go home’.”For others, including some in the college’s combined cadet force (CCF), what lingers is the image of the young Mr Farage in uniform and his renderings of a racist anthem titled “Gas ’em all”. Tim France, a CCF member from those years, remembered Mr Farage “regularly” giving the Nazi salute and strutting around the classroom. “It was habitual, you know, it happened all the time,” he recalls. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago The real Reform voters have been revealed – it’s a slapdash coalition Farage will struggle to hold together | Aditya Chakrabortty

This is no single bloc marching under one ideology, or even a mass of ‘red-wall’ voters. What unites them is a desire for something differentWho are Nigel Farage’s army, the voters who want him as our next prime minister? Few questions are as important in British politics. Were an election called tomorrow, the favourite for No 10 would be Farage, whose immigration policies are in some ways more extreme than those of the BNP were. His party’s role model for government would be Donald Trump’s US: Elon Musk-style cuts to our public services and masked agents snatching families off the streets.A few months ago, many in Westminster and across the country would have considered this a cautionary nightmare, a catastrophe that would unfold if Keir Starmer failed. But in the week of another red-on-red assault and after 150 opinion polls in a row topped by Farage’s Reform UK, it’s no longer a scare story. It’s the most likely prospect. Continue reading...

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3 w. ago It’s the BBC v Trump, Farage and co. Who in their right mind would want to be its new boss? | Marina Hyde

Public life is a minefield and the best and brightest just don’t want to know. How convenient for foes of the most trusted news organisation in the worldListen, I hate to ruin a yarn wall but I don’t think it’s at all helpful to start framing the current crisis at the BBC as a giant conspiracy or coup by dark rightwing forces, and get stuck in the weeds of that. The fact is, the three mistakes that form the bulk of Michael Prescott’s explosive leaked memo about impartiality – the Panorama edit, issues with coverage of the transgender issue and bias in the BBC Arabic service – happened and are bad. Given their spectacular fallout and the highest-level scalps that have been claimed, the opportunity to now deal with them might as well be taken by what is, let’s not forget, the most trusted news organisation in the world.There is no news organisation in the United States that reaches more than 25% of people in a week. BBC News reaches 74% of UK adults in a week. There is vastly more dis...

Politics

4 w. ago Economic policy is one thing Nigel Farage can’t crib from the Donald Trump playbook | Rafael Behr

The Maga model, based on the US’s exorbitant market privileges, can’t be imported to Britain. That’s going to be a problem for Reform UKNigel Farage loves a gamble. In his 2015 memoir, The Purple Revolution, a whole chapter is dedicated to the then Ukip leader’s appetite for risk, how he indulged it in the City and how that prepared him for a career in politics.He boasts of the time he “lost a seven-figure sum of money in the course of a morning on the zinc market” before breezing off to the pub. He waxes nostalgic about the halcyon days of freewheeling finance, before “ghastly regulators” spoiled the fun; when “terrible cock-ups” could be written off because “decimal points and all those zeros can be tricky after a three-hour lunch”. Continue reading...

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