David Lammy has claimed Nigel Farage “flirted with Hitler Youth when he was younger” in a raging attack at the Labour party conference.
The deputy prime minister launched a scathing hit at the Reform leader after Keir Starmer called the party’s new policy to remove Indefinite Leave to Remain for immigrants living in the UK “racist”.
Why did Lammy say Farage flirted with ‘Hitler Youth’
In 1981, when Farage was 17 at Dulwich College, a teacher wrote a letter objecting to his appointment as a prefect, describing him as “a fascist, a racist but a natural leader of men.” The teacher also relayed that colleagues claimed Farage and other cadets once marched “through a Sussex village singing Hitler Youth songs.”
Farage later acknowledged he was provocative as a teenager but strongly denied ever singing Hitler Youth songs, saying he didn’t even know any. The Guardian included this detail near the end of an article in 2013 when covering the resurfaced letter, but framed it as an allegation rather than a proven fact.
When asked if the Reform leader is a racist, Lammy said: “I’m not going to play the man, I’m going to play the ball as our leader did. I will leave it to the public to come to their own judgment about someone who once flirted with Hitler Youth when he was younger.”
Talking to the BBC, Keir Starmer called Farage’s new policy “racist”.
He said: “I do think that it is a racist policy. I do think it is immoral. It needs to be called out for what it is. I think there are plenty of people who either vote Reform or are thinking of voting Reform who are frustrated. They had 14 years of failure under the Conservatives, they want us to change things.”
“It is one thing to say we’re going to remove illegal migrants, people who have no right to be here. I’m up for that. It is a completely different thing to say we are going to reach in to people who are lawfully here and remove them. They are our neighbours. It will rip the UK apart.”
Nigel Farage rejects this claim.