london
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Andrew Field remembers how his school in south London used to hand out little blue books listing all the pupils who had started that year. He said that one boy read the book and counted how many children he had with the common British surname Smith, and how many children with the Indian surname Patel.
“When there was more Patel than Smith…he did a public ceremony of burning that school record in protest,” Field told CNN.
The former pupil, whom Mr Field remembers as an “arrogant, lonely loner” who liked to “strut” in his school uniform, grew up to become perhaps Britain’s most influential politician of this century, right-wing populist Nigel Farage. After finishing his career in commodity trading in London’s financial district, Mr Farage served as a long-time member of the European Parliament and went on to lead a successful campaign for Britain to leave the European Union. But Mr Farage, now 61 and leader of the anti-immigration UK Reform Party, has his sights set on bigger goals. If elections were held tomorrow, most opinion polls suggest he would likely become the next prime minister.
Mr Field is one of around 20 contemporaries at the elite Dulwich University who recently publicly accused Mr Farage of highly offensive, racist and anti-Semitic behavior throughout his teenage years in the 1970s and 1980s. Mr Farage denied the allegations, which were reported last month in the Guardian newspaper for the first time on record.
But as more former students come forward with new accusations, the scandal threatens to stay with the typically Teflon-coated Farage. Analysts say the allegations pose the biggest challenge yet to the Reform Party’s efforts to convince Britain that it is a party responsible enough to govern a multi-ethnic nation of about 70 million people, rather than just a protest voting party.
Mr Field, a doctor with Britain’s National Health Service, is not convinced. Mr Farage’s “scroll burning” ritual is one of several examples of alleged racism he recalls. He said he often saw Mr Farage giving Nazi salutes and getting goosebumps, adding: “It was a really common sight.” Field claimed that the nine-year-old boy, the only black boy in his class, was “repeatedly bullied” by the much older Farage.
One incident is burned into Field’s mind. He said Farage, who was already a coach, took it upon himself to teach Field how to use his new powers when he was named coach, a senior who was trusted to enforce school rules and act as an example for others.
“He took me to a middle school where younger kids were playing and detained an Indian kid completely at random. There was no reason for him to do that,” Field said. “I was so shocked by that.”
Unlike Field, who is two years younger than Farage, Peter Etedgui, now an award-winning film director, was in the same class as him from the age of 13 to 14. They sat in alphabetical order, which meant future politicians were never far away, he said.
“As soon as he found out I was Jewish, that was it,” Etedgui told CNN. “He said in a cynical and dismissive way, ‘Hitler was right,’ which meant, ‘You shouldn’t be here.'” Farage also said, “Blow the gas,” and sometimes added a long hiss to imitate the sound of a gas chamber, Etedgui said.
Mr Farage had previously denied the claims made by Mr Field, Mr Etedgui and others, which were first reported in the Guardian newspaper. “I can confirm that the stories that have been told about me for 50 years are not true,” Farage said in a statement to CNN. He said the Guardian “wants to vilify anyone who talks about immigration”.
These kinds of claims were first made about Farage more than a decade ago. In 2013, journalist Michael Crick reportedly discovered a letter from an English teacher at Dulwich University. The university, which currently has an annual membership fee of about $85,000, opposed the decision to appoint the 17-year-old Farage as governor in 1981, citing his “avowedly racist and neo-fascist views”.
At the time, Farage admitted that he had said: “Sometimes it’s ridiculous… It’s not necessarily racist, it depends on how you define it.” Mr Farage, usually outspoken and bullish, was initially unusually evasive in response to the allegations, issuing a series of vehement and alarming denials.
Last month, Mr Farage responded to the new claims in a broadcast interview: “Have I ever tried to condemn individuals because of their background? No,” he said in a broadcast interview. Asked what he meant by that comment, he told ITV he had never “deliberately” abused anyone, nor had he “directly and truly tried to hurt anyone”. He said the allegations related to “49 years ago”, when he was just a teenager. In a subsequent statement, Mr Farage flatly denied the allegations against him.
Some think Mr Farage is evasive, but many of his contemporaries say he is simply lying. Mr Field said Mr Farage’s racism was at its “heightest” not only when he was in his early teens but also when he became governor at the age of 17 and 18. “That was when he had a little bit of power and he was bullying much younger kids,” Field said.
Mr Etedgui also said Mr Farage’s claim that he had never “directly” targeted anyone was untrue. “The abuse was directed and very personal, and I always remembered that because it was toxic,” he said. “Today, every time I hear about that person, my blood runs cold.”
It is unclear whether these allegations will derail Mr Farage’s hopes of joining Downing Street after the next election, which is not due until 2029. Sundar Katwala, director of British Future, a London-based think tank that researches integration, immigration and race, said Farage had consistently been able to win around 15% of the vote (about 4 million people) in general and European elections, first when he led the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and then in the Brexit election. The party that became Reform Britain in 2021.
While Mr Farage’s most ardent supporters may ignore claims that he was a teenage bully who used racist slurs at school, Mr Katwala said transforming Reform from a “15% party” to a “30% party” with the potential to win a general election meant attracting a different type of moderate electorate.
He said the task could become even more difficult in the face of a concerted campaign of tactical voting if a coalition of “anything but reform” rallied to remove Mr Farage from power. In last year’s election, Keir Starmer’s Labor Party won a landslide victory with just over a third of the vote, a victory made possible by most voters’ “indifference” to Labour’s victory, Katwala said.
“There’s a greater danger for them than they realized,” he said of the reforms. “Even if it’s not inconceivable that Mr Farage could win, if a third of the people think it’s worth a roll of the dice to try to make him prime minister, I think a large majority of the public would have to be indifferent to allowing people to roll the dice that way.”
Reforms are not yet underway, he added. Mr Farage has sought to “detoxify” Reform Party’s reputation, but the latest YouGov poll in September found that a majority of white British voters view Reform Party as a racist party with racist policies, while around 46% to 36% think Reform Party is not racist in general. Meanwhile, just 13% of ethnic minority voters have a favorable opinion of Mr Farage, while eight in 10 view him unfavorably, according to YouGov.
But Mr Farage could benefit from political distance from those further to his right. He rejects an alliance with Tommy Robinson, a radical anti-Muslim activist championed by X owner Elon Musk. While much of Britain’s online right debates whether black and Asian people are ‘really’ British or whether foreign-born politicians should be allowed into parliament, Mr Farage has long welcomed ethnic minorities into his party and proudly put them in the spotlight. “In some ways, he’s on the mainstream side of these discussions,” Katwala said.
But Mr Farage’s former schoolmates say the public should be as concerned about his denials as they are about the allegations themselves. “On the other hand, it’s actually almost comical that he’s trying to deny something that is so widely supported,” Etedgui said. “But on the other hand, it’s very upsetting to think that this man could become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.”
Some former students at Dulwich College have told British media that they do not accept the allegations of racism against Mr Farage. Some of Mr Farage’s allies have accused his former classmates of a “political” attempt to smear him. But the accusers claim they were approached independently of each other, and Mr Etedgui said he ultimately came forward because he wanted voters to do “due diligence” before casting their votes in the next general election, due by 2029.
“We all say the exact same thing,” Etedgui said of the accusers. “Certainly, for me, it comes down to something very personal. I don’t want the school bully to become prime minister.”
