David Lammy has come forward to reveal the “traumatic” racial abuse he suffered as a youngster as he urged Nigel Farage to apologise for remarks he allegedly made while a teenager.
The Deputy PM said the testimony of more than 20 of the Reform leader’s school contemporaries of his racist and antisemitic behaviour was “deeply troubling”.
Farage has faced repeated calls for a show of contrition after a Guardian investigation into his time at Dulwich College, a fee paying school, but he is yet to apologise.
He has denied that anything he did as a young man was “directly” racist or antisemitic while conceding that “banter” then could be interpreted differently today.
Lammy told the Guardian: “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.”
But, Farage denies the allegations.
Last week, he said: “I can tell you categorically that I did not say the things that have been published in the Guardian aged 13, nearly 50 years ago.
“Isn’t it interesting: I am probably the most scrutinised figure in British politics, having been in public life for 32 years. Several books and thousands of stories have been written about me, but it is only now that my party is leading in the polls that these allegations come out. I will leave the public to draw their own conclusions about why that might be.
“We know that the Guardian wants to smear anybody who talks about the immigration issue. But the truth is that I have done more in my career to defeat extremism and far-right politics than anybody else in the UK, from my time fighting the BNP right up to today.
“Many of those making these statements just happen to be political opponents. One, for example, is the current chair of the Salisbury Lib Dems. This is not the first time the desperate establishment has come after me, and it will not be the last.
“So again: I can categorically say that the stories being told about me from 50 years ago are not true”