Overview
- Farage said he had “never directly tried to hurt anyone” and denied using racist language with intent, stressing the incidents would be roughly 49 years old.
- His lawyers wrote to the Guardian disputing that he made racist or antisemitic statements as a teenager and questioned the public interest in decades-old claims.
- Filmmaker Peter Ettedgui alleges Farage told him “Hitler was right” or “Gas them” at school and imitated gas‑chamber sounds.
- Other former classmates described Farage as provocative and attention-seeking but said they did not recall the specific antisemitic remarks alleged by Ettedgui.
- The row carries political weight because Farage leads Reform UK, which has polled strongly, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer has criticized his earlier reluctance to respond.