I’ve written five political biographies in my time as a journalist and broadcast numerous television profiles. I especially love delving into people’s childhoods and schooldays for early clues of what was to come. And for Nigel Farage, more than anyone else I’ve studied, one can see so many aspects of the Reform leader of today in his teenage self.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Farage, now 61, attended Dulwich College, the distinguished south London private school whose alumni include Ernest Shackleton and PG Wodehouse. In the sixth form, Farage stood out among his slovenly, scruffy peers for always wearing a neat, spotless jacket and tie, and highly polished leather shoes. He loved discussion and argument. When his teacher organised class debates and called for a volunteer to propose the motion, Farage’s hand would shoot up. If rejected, he’d volunteer for the opposite side.
He was known for being provocative and disruptive with his views, and for enjoying winding up trendy, left-wing English masters. Farage now is strikingly like the Farage of then. Then, as later, the Dulwich schoolboy could be disruptive and divisive. As a teenager, he was impressed by two well-known speakers who visited the college: Enoch Powell and Margaret Thatcher’s key philosophical mentor, Keith Joseph, whose speech he’s since said encouraged him to join the Conservative Party. It was during this time that Farage developed the English nationalist outlook we see today, with particular concerns about immigration.
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Farage was known for being provocative and disruptive with his views, and for enjoying winding up trendy, left-wing English masters (Nigel Farage)
In 2013, I made a film for Channel 4 News, which included a letter from a young teacher, Chloe Deakin, to David Emms, the Dulwich headmaster (formally called “The Master”). In it, she opposed his decision in 1981 to make Farage a prefect at 17, describing him as having “publicly professed racist and neo-fascist views”.
The head and his deputy dismissed the charges against Farage as examples of him just being provocative. When confronted by these accusations in 2013, Farage said: “Any accusation I was ever involved in far-right politics is utterly untrue”. Other former pupils of the school told Channel 4 that Mr Farage’s views were “merely Thatcherite”. And it should be noted that many contemporaries I spoke to didn’t recognise the picture of Farage as a fascist either.
When I confronted Farage for the Channel 4 film, he seemed surprisingly relaxed on camera when he admitted to me about his schooldays: “Of course I said some ridiculous things.” “Racist things?” I asked. “Not necessarily racist things. It depends on how you define it.”
It was only later, when I wrote my independent biography of Farage, One Party After Another: The Disruptive Life of Nigel Farage (2022), that my ex-wife and I tracked down a number of former pupils and teachers and were able to get a more complete picture.
Among those I contacted was a Jewish film producer who was happy for me to quote his words, but didn’t want his name in the book. He alleged that Farage told him that he ought to be gassed. When TheGuardian published their investigation last week, the film producer was now happy to be named as Peter Ettedgui.
“He would sidle up to me and growl, ‘Hitler was right’, or ‘Gas them’,” Ettedgui claimed, “sometimes adding a long hiss to simulate the sound of the gas showers … I’d never experienced antisemitism growing up, so the first time this vicious verbal abuse came out of Farage’s mouth was deeply shocking.”
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In the late 1970s and early 1980s Farage attended Dulwich College (Getty)
Ettedgui also suggested that Farage was openly racist towards Black and Asian boys: “I’d hear him calling other students ‘P***’ or ‘W**’, and urging them to ‘go home’. I tried to ignore him, but it was humiliating. It was shaming. This kind of abuse cuts through to the core of your identity.”
The Guardian quoted one Asian former pupil who claimed that when he was a young boy at Dulwich, Farage – by then in the sixth form – would pick on Asian children in the junior school. “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 … It was a very horrible ordeal.” Another fellow pupil, Tim France, was quoted as saying, “He would often be doing Nazi salutes and saying ‘Sieg heil’ and, you know, strutting around the classroom. He was a member of the cadet force, [so] often being in uniform. And, yeah, it might have been for shock value, partly, but I think, you know, clearly, he also is very right-wing politically.
“He was saying really, really unpleasant things, really things that you just knew were wrong. You can’t really defend it as being a joke, or that he was too young to know any better. We were 18.”
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The politician has always tried to brush stories from his schooldays aside (PA)
Both TheGuardian and I heard from witnesses who claimed Farage sang a notorious song called “Gas ’em all”, a vile variation of the 1940s George Formby wartime song “Bless ’Em All (The Long and the Short and the Tall)”. Farage strongly denies that.
The Reform leader has always tried to brush stories from his schooldays aside, often light-heartedly. Before my book came out, eight years ago, Farage told me that “the terms of abuse thrown around between 15-year-old boys were limitless; there were no boundaries. I think red-haired boys fared especially badly.”
But that has changed recently. On Monday this week, Farage gave a TV interview about his behaviour at Dulwich. Asked if he had racially abused fellow pupils at school, he replied: “No, this is 49 years ago, by the way. Forty-nine years ago. Have I ever tried to take it out on any individual on the basis of where they’re from? No.” When pressed again to categorically deny the claims, he said: “I would never, ever do it in a hurtful or insulting way. It’s 49 years ago. It’s 49 years ago. I had just entered my teens. Can I remember everything that happened at school? No, I can’t. Have I ever been part of an extremist organisation or engaged in direct, unpleasant, personal abuse, genuine abuse, on that basis? No.” When asked yet again whether he had racially abused anyone, he responded: “No, not with intent.”
On Tuesday, he released a statement in which he said: “I can tell you categorically that I did not say the things that have been published in The Guardian aged 13, nearly 50 years ago … It is only now that my party is leading in the polls that these allegations come out. I will leave the public to draw their own conclusions about why that might be … We know that The Guardian wants to smear anybody who talks about the immigration issue. But the truth is that I have done more in my career to defeat extremism and far-right politics than anybody else in the UK, from my time fighting the BNP right up to today.”
Farage’s barrister, Adam Richardson, has since threatened to sue TheGuardian for “aggravated damages”, saying that Farage “emphatically denied” the allegations as “wholly untrue”. A Reform spokesperson said the allegations were a case of “one word against another”.
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During his adult life, Farage has been a strong supporter of Israel (AFP/Getty)
His denials may deepen the hurt felt by many of those who are now saying that they were on the receiving end of his comments. Diehard Reform supporters may not care about these stories, but others will feel very uncomfortable. Farage and Reform need a much wider appeal to form a government. They risk alienating not just Jewish voters, but middle-of-the-road Labour, Conservative, and Liberal supporters tempted to switch to Reform but who care about racism and antisemitism.
I don’t believe that Farage has been an antisemite during his adult life, and he has been a strong supporter of Israel. Nor do I believe he is racist these days, though he sometimes seems to pander to those who are. He is, as he pointed out in his statement, proud of the way, under his leadership, he helped see off the racist BNP in the 2000s, and he resigned from Ukip in 2018 after one of his successors as leader began consorting with Tommy Robinson.
What is also significant is that during my research, I spoke to dozens of people from his various parties who had fallen out with Farage (he falls out with many colleagues). Although they had plenty of negative things to say about him, only one accused him of being racist.
The barrister for Reform UK has been emphatic in his denial of the latest allegations, describing them as “wholly untrue”. Richardson said: “The suggestion that Mr Farage ever engaged in, condoned, or led racist or antisemitic behaviour is categorically denied.”
However, speaking to reporters on the way to the G20 summit in Johannesburg, Keir Starmer said Farage still had “questions to answer” about the alleged racist comments and chants when at school.
The PM said: “He needs to explain the comments, or alleged comments that were made, and he needs to do that as soon as possible. He hasn’t got a good track record in relation to this because Sarah Pochin, his MP, made some clearly racist comments and Nigel Farage has done absolutely nothing about it.”
He added: “The man is spineless. If that had been someone in my party, I’d have dealt with it straight away. He needs to explain the latest allegations, and whilst he’s at it, he needs to explain why he’s too spineless to take action in relation to what is obvious racism in the comments of his fellow MP.”
When The Independent contacted Reform about the allegations, they declined to make any further comment.
