Farage’s racism

[CuriousKangaroo]

I haven’t yet seen a post about this story: Twenty people allege he has a racist past. He denies it. Who’s telling the truth about Farage’s schooldays? | Nigel Farage | The Guardian

Farage no longer categorically denies these incidents, and is now trying to fudge things by saying he didn’t mean any harm and it was a long time ago - presumably because he knows it is true and realises that 20 separate people saying it means only the truly deluded wouldn’t believe he was a racist.

But what I am interested in is does this actually assist his election chances? We already know that many of his supporters are racists - does it actually work for him that this blatant racism from him shores up their support? Are they secretly (or perhaps not so secretly in some cases) pleased?

And what do those of you who are Reform supporters but believe yourself not be racist think? Does it make you change your mind about him or Reform?

https://bylinetimes.com/2025/10/04/thick-as-thieves-nathan-gill-and-nigel-farages-putin-problem/

nobody has come forward to say that Farage wasn't doing the things claimed

To be fair, a few former pupils have defended him:

Roger Gough, another classmate, said “multicultural change” was “a big preoccupation” for Farage, but did not remember any instances of racist behaviour.

Reza Rahbari, another fellow student, was entirely positive, saying Farage was “very talkative” and “an amicable, decent chap”.

'He never said anything racist or insulting to people,' says Jonathan Mayne. 'I don't think he was malicious. He was unconventional and said things that were not everyone's cup of tea. He was larger than life and also quite self-deprecating in his humour.'

Nor does Jon Benjamin think Farage was anti-Semitic. 'Being Jewish, I think I'd remember that.'

It's not the most convincing defence.

And they are not denying it happened.

Comrade Corbyn and his director of communications, Seumas Milne, had a Putin problem. Nevertheless, more people voted for Corbyn than Starmer:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3298550/Red-handed-Photograph-shows-Jeremy-Corbyn-s-pro-Kremlin-spin-chief-held-Putin-s-iron-grip-propaganda-summit.html
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/14/jeremy-corbyn-under-fire-over-response-to-pms-russia-statement

It's one of your special skills Clav to insert Corbyn into a thread

I try my best.

Farage's racism isn't a bug, it's a feature. People vote for him because of it, not despite it. It's like the Brexit voters who claimed it was about 'sovrintee' when it was always the racism that attracted them.

The BBC made me do it is today's defence,

www.politico.eu/article/nigel-farage-bbc-radio-hitler-comment-racist-reform-uk/

I watched Farage's speech live on Sky News this afternoon. It was gas craic.😂

I'll sumarise:
Foreign money in UK politics is brilliant. The best millionaires leave the country then invest in lots of stuff all over the world. Including the Farage owned company: Reform UK.

BBC shouldn't mention my past racist, antisemitic bullying because of 1970s shows and Bernard Manning.

I've never been Putin's Puppet even though I've been paid to push a pro Putin agenda for years. Nope. Not at all. Putin is a "monster".

Reform UK will run the country as well as they're running Kent CC.

Labour are so scared of democracy that people might be asked to vote once a year for 3 years in a row.

ITV shouldn't mention my past racist, antisemitic bullying because of 1970s shows and Bernard Manning who was more of an ITV thing than a BBC thing anyway.

Loads of people wrote to me to say I'm not a racist, antisemitic fuckwit but I'm not telling you who they are.

Tetchy moaning.

Stop answering questions.

He was hilarious.
🤣🤣🤣

Thanks for taking one for the team @TooBigForMyBoots. Unfortunately a lot of people voted for Johnson’s government in 2019 because he was a laugh. 😳

Re Nigel's new donor... why are we even allowing political donations from people who aren't residents in the UK?

I see that he's going with the defence of "everyone was racist back then". Not a great look, not least because they weren't.

It is. Now it is crystal clear what a horrible racist Farage is, I can't understand why anyone who isn't a racist could continue to support Reform, even if they hate Labour and want them out of government. I hate the Tories, but if they were in power I wouldn't vote Reform even if that was the only way to get the Tories out.

Unfortunately there are lots of people who think they aren't racist, but are.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/dec/05/holocaust-survivors-call-on-nigel-farage-to-apologise-over-alleged-antisemitic-comments?

Disgusted by Tice during his interview by Emma Barnett. Branding the man who has consistently maintained for years that he was subjected to anti-semitism by Farage an outright liar. Apparently, anyone who supports such claims through personal experience of the man has an “agenda”.

Bollocks.

The thing is, Tice is saying it's all lies, but Farage isn't denying any of it. He just says he never meant it in a harmful way, or some such gaslighting nonsense.

Another one now but will it make the slightest difference to his supporters?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/dec/05/nigel-farage-former-dulwich-college-pupil-alleges-said-thats-the-way-back-to-africa

As I understand it, thus fellow spoke to the Guardian anonymously earlier. He is now so furious that he wanted to go on record.

Not to the hard core, but to swing voters maybe.

All of those reform softies posting 'well, maybe he deserves a chance. How bad can it be?'

Telling jokes about the gas chambers to Jewish kids bad. He was 17 when some of this happened and the victims in some cases were much younger, defenceless kids.

If he did that in a school today we would call the police and refer him to prevent.

I wonder if there is already some impact with swing voters?

Question Time was on BBC 1 last night, a special on immigration. The audience was said to represent a balanced range of views and the panel was a range of politicians.

By far the most applause went to Zack Polanski (Green leader) with Daisy Cooper of the Lib Dens coming second. ZP cast his belief in open borders as an ideal that is not feasible at present and spoke of the contributions immigrants make at many levels, not all material, and of how welcoming people makes us better humans. DC spoke of how badly Brexit cocked up the immigration pathways and of her belief that Brits desperately need more opportunities - growth! Lacking opportunity, many (wrongly in her view) focus on immigrants and in particular asylum seekers as the core obstacle to their own success.

Both ZP and DC believe that with humane economic policies, good growth and politics that work for people, our problems can be solved without turning away those who have good reason to come here. The audience responded warmly.

Zia Yusuf and well as the others were largely received in silence, even though the audience expressed a certain amount of anti-immigrant sentiment (audience views were mixed)

The recording is presumably on iPlayer

Well i didn't bother googling all of them but Jack Straw was (according to Google) never a member of the Communist party of Great Britain, so you ve failed there.

Even if others were, its world difference between tormenting Jews about the Holocaust and mixing with like minded students inside a legal party - i listened to one person who was subject to these taunts, this man was traumatised, whatever Farage said, is was over time, was consistent and he meant it.

Your wider point on "views change as we grow up" yes thats fair enough but in the 70s everyone knew about the Holocaust, esp children who went to top schools and more importantly, Farage is denying all of this, despite overwhelming evidence, if he said "Yes i did say these things and i was utterly wrong and it was stupid of me"

Then of course, that should be accepted, up to the people he bullied to forgive him though.

100% agree. I was also racially abused at a fairly well known south London private school in the 1980s. I was called a racial epithet at least once a week. I remember every single instance of it to this day

Zia Yusef was very tetchy and a member of the audience had to remind him of his manners.🤨

That got a round of applause.😁

He’s quite deliberately inflammatory, his resting face is a supercilious smirk and his rudeness is unparalleled. I hate the way he interrupts people and shouts them down. I thought it was the Labour guy who asked him to mind his manners.