David Lammy recalls traumatic racial abuse at school as he urges Nigel Farage to apologise for remarks made in his youth, intensifying the political row.
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 actions was “deeply troubling”.
Following a Guardian examination into his time at Dulwich College in southeast London, Farage has been under constant pressure to express regret, but he has yet to do so.
He has disputed that whatever he did as a young man was “directly” racist or antisemitic while allowing that “banter” then could be understood differently today.
Farage, 61, was compared to people who mistreated him as a young man growing up in north London by Lammy, 53, whose parents, David and Rosalind, immigrated to the UK from Guyana.
He said:
“I was at school at the same time as Nigel Farage, late 70s, early 80s, and I’ve had a few former classmates contact me and apologise for some of the racial abuse that I suffered in that particular era. He should do the same.
That kind of treatment in teenage years is actually quite traumatic, very isolating. Reading those stories is deeply, deeply troubling. He’s now the leader of a political party. He should do the right thing and apologise.”
According to Farage's classmates, he engaged in racist behavior during his secondary school years, including using derogatory language to target particular minority ethnic youngsters.
Among those who have given detailed testimony of their alleged experiences is Peter Ettedgui, an Emmy- and Bafta-winning director, who claimed that a 13-year-old Farage “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 student reported that a 17-year-old Farage had attacked him in a similar manner when he was around nine years old.
Farage has said the roughly two dozen former classmates who have informed the Guardian of witnessing racist behaviour are politically motivated and not telling the truth. In particular, he has refuted Ettedgui's assertions.
Keir Starmer has called Farage as “spineless” and on Monday the attorney general, Richard Hermer, underlined that the Reform leader has not condemned antisemitism in any of his utterances since the allegations were made.
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has talked of his dismay at Farage’s “desperate” denials as he detailed how his experiences as a child had affected his life.
“Being called the P-word at that age doesn’t just hurt you, it changes you,”
he said.
How have political leaders reacted to Lammy's allegations and call?
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has receded from Lammy's call for Farage to apologise, fastening on policy reviews of Reform UK rather than particular attacks, as seen in his conference address denouncing the party's immigration station as" racist" but avoiding individual markers.
Kemi Badenoch, Tory leader, dismissed Lammy's allegations as" pupil politics," prompting Starmer to apologise for Lammy's once depreciatory Trump reflections rather, pressing perceived Labour insincerity on racism debates.
Nigel Farage denied intent behind teenage" badinage," refusing reason and framing it as 50- time-old schoolyard talk amid 1970s culture. No major cross-party support for Lammy's call surfaced; independent MPs like Zarah Sultana have challenged Lammy on unconnected issues( e.g., Israel arms), showing fractured responses.