The Guardian newspaper spoke to 20 of Farage’s contemporaries, some of whom claim Farage used racial slurs, told pupils to “go home,” and said “Hitler was right.”
Asked categorically to deny the allegations, the Reform UK leader said: “I would never, ever do it in a hurtful or insulting way,” adding: “I’d just entered my teens. Can I remember everything that happened at school? No I can’t.”
Farage said he had never been part of an “extremist organization” and hadn’t engaged in “direct, unpleasant, personal abuse.”
Pressed further, Farage said any inappropriate comments he had made were “not with intent.”
“Have I said things 50 years ago that you could interpret as being banter in a playground, you could interpret in the modern light of day in some sort of way? Yes,” he conceded. “Have I
ever misspoken in my life, in my younger days when I was a child? Probably.”
It is a perilous moment for the populist Farage, who has built his appeal around being a straight talker.