Starmer accuses ‘spineless’ Farage of failure to tackle racism in Reform party

Nigel Farage has been accused of being “spineless” by the prime minister and a “coward” by Dulwich college contemporaries over his response to allegations of racism. Keir Starmer said the Reform UK leader had “questions to answer” about alleged comments and chants as a teenager that include songs about the Holocaust and accusations of bullying towards minority ethnic schoolboys. He added that Farage had a “track record” when it came to racism, pointing to his failure to discipline his fellow Reform MP Sarah Pochin after she complained about the number of black and brown people she saw in adverts. Speaking to reporters on the way to the G20 summit in Johannesburg, Starmer said: “He needs to explain the comments, or alleged comments that were made, and he needs to do that as soon as possible. He hasn’t got a good track record in relation to this because Sarah Pochin, his MP, made some clearly racist comments and Nigel Farage has done absolutely nothing about it.” Related: Ministers call on Nigel Farage to address ‘repulsive’ teenage racism allegations He added: “The man is spineless. If that had been someone in my party, I’d have dealt with it straight away. He needs to explain the latest allegations, and whilst he’s at it, he needs to explain why he’s too spineless to take action in relation to what is obvious racism in the comments of his fellow MP. “So far he’s said absolutely nothing about it. He’s got plenty to say on lots of things, apart from showing some leadership when it comes to racism.” Contemporaries accused Farage of targeting minority ethnic children for abuse during his time at Dulwich college, along with a series of other racist acts, including allegedly singing a “gas ’em all” song that referred to the killing of Jewish, black and south-east Asian people, and burning a school roll in a year when there were said to be more Patels than Smiths. Farage’s spokesperson has said that the allegations of racism and antisemitism in his teenage years are “entirely without foundation” and that the claims are “one person’s word against another”. “If things like this happened a very, very long time ago, you can’t necessarily recollect what happened,” the spokesperson claimed. A former pupil, who claims to have been targeted with racist abuse when he was nine and Farage was 17, said: “As someone bullied by a person towering over you height-wise and being racially aggressive, it would never be forgotten. Being singled out in the lower school playground just because you look different will never be forgotten. People can forget many things but not an empty helpless feeling of fear, I assure you.” Jean-Pierre Lihou, who was a friend of Farage’s for a while at Dulwich college and says he stayed over at his home, said Farage should personally address the allegations, which he described as numerous and consistent. He said: “It is not one person’s word against another, there is a lot of people who have similar recollections. Is he saying that everyone has simultaneously made this up?” Lihou, 61, who claims to have seen Farage abuse Peter Ettedgui, today an award-winning director, at school, added: “People need to wake up. It is a brave thing to do to speak out. People have work colleagues and some might disagree with you doing it. My niece sent me a message that almost made me well up. She said she had never been more proud to call me her uncle. It is cowardly of him to hide behind a spokesperson. Is it because there is nothing he can say?” Tim France, 61, who claimed to have heard Farage chanting racist songs and “regularly” performing the Nazi “Sieg heil” salute, said Farage appeared to have adopted the approach of Donald Trump in issuing blanket denials of anything damaging to him. He said: “Firstly it’s not ‘one person’s word against another’, it’s, what, 12 people’s words against one? Secondly, when Michael Crick interviewed Farage back in 2013 he gave an entirely different response. He used the ‘we all say stupid things when we’re young’ defence. “So which response is the real one: ‘we all said stupid things’ or ‘it didn’t happen’ and we’re all ‘fake news’? I think that inconsistency is the interesting thing now.” A fourth former pupil, who was in the combined cadet force at Dulwich college, where he claims to have heard Farage sing a song about gassing Jewish people, said: “My memory is very clear. You don’t get 12 witnesses to comment on something and then claim it could have been concocted. Related: Nazi salutes and racism: the allegations about Nigel Farage’s school days – podcast “Their line of rebuttal is not just poor strategic communications, [it] does little to assist Farage’s attempts to be a credible prime ministerial candidate, as he clearly said these things, and a better strategy would have been to admit that he said silly things in his past and is a better man now leading the country to a more cohesive, less divisive future. It shows a lack of moral courage.” The Reform leader is also under pressure to take action against Pochin after her comments last month for which she has apologised. The MP told TalkTV: “It drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people.” She said “it doesn’t reflect our society” and “your average white person, average white family” was not “represented any more”. Farage called her comments “ugly” but not racist and failed to take any disciplinary action against her. A Reform source said Starmer was “desperate, sinking in the polls and lashing out”. Farage said: “For the weakest prime minister in living memory to call me spineless is utterly ludicrous. The voters will have their say on both of us at the ballot box next May.”