Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has downplayed claims he used racist and antisemitic language as a teenager at school.
Speaking at a rally in North Wales on Monday, he said he could not remember everything he said 50 years ago.
It is the first time Farage has addressed the allegations – reported by The Guardian – directly, rather than through a spokesperson.
Asked whether he had ever racially abused fellow pupils, he said: “No, I have never directly really tried to go and hurt anybody.”
Further pressed about the allegations, the 61-year-old said: “Have I said things 50 years ago that you could interpret as being banter in a playground? You could interpret in the modern light a 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.”
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 to school? No, I can’t.”
When asked if there was a possibility he did use racist language, Farage replied: “None of us can be sure of anything we say, ever, even today, that somebody else might take to be hurtful. But intentionally? No.”
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Farage then added that he would apologise to anyone who may have been hurt by something he allegedly said “if they were genuinely hurt”.
The Guardian last week published allegations about Farage’s racist behaviour as a teenager at Dulwich College, a private school in London.
The claims, which Farage denies, come from more than 12 former classmates, who accuse him of directing racist abuse at minority ethnic pupils and singing a song called “gas ’em all” about killing Jewish, Black and south-east Asian people.
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