School-time racism allegations are clearly getting to Farage

Nigel Farage is getting very annoyed that the allegations of his extreme racism during his school years aren’t just quietly going away. Today, the racist-in-chief went on a rant about the BBC continuing to ask probing questions, and then tried desperately to turn the subject of the conversation onto the BBC’s own bigoted content.

In his own defence, Farage has stated that he may have engaged in “banter.” However, he insisted that he was never racist or antisemitic “directly” to an individual. Quite why this is an important distinction in Farage’s eyes is beyond us, but hey ho.

Farage—A quick reminder

As a reminder of the allegations, a Jewish ex-classmate, Peter Ettedgui, claimed that Farage made multiple racist comments to him at Dulwich College. He stated that Farage would walk up to him and say “Hitler was right” and “gas them”. This sounds pretty ‘direct’ to us.

Ettedgui, whose grandparents had escaped the Holocaust, told the Guardian:

I’d never experienced antisemitism growing up, so the first time that this vicious verbal abuse came out of Farage’s mouth was deeply shocking. But I wasn’t his only target. I’d hear him calling other students ‘Paki’ or ‘Wog’, and urging them to ‘go home’.

Another classmate, Tim France, confirmed this account of Farage’s vile behavior:

It was habitual, you know, it happened all the time. He would often be doing Nazi salutes and saying ‘Sieg heil’ and, you know, strutting around the classroom.

Yet another student, Mark Haward, recalled that:

He loved the sound of his own voice; he would come in usually chanting something. He always wanted to be listened to – I distinctly remember him coming in several times chanting ‘Oswald Ernald Mosley’.

So far, around two dozen former classmates have confirmed that Farage used to walk around making racist comments at school, surprising precisely nobody.

Richard Tice to the rescue

Yesterday, Reform deputy Richard Tice appeared on BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme. On the show, presenter Emma Barnett quizzed him on whether it was direct racial abuse to say “Hitler was right” to a Jewish person. Tice answered:

Yes I do … I can’t believe anybody would have said that.

Pretty straight-forward, there. However, Tice then turned around and called the allegations:

made-up twaddle from people who don’t want Nigel to be prime minister of the country.

Barnett then came out and asked Tice if he thought that Ettedgui was lying. Tice answered “Yes”:

I think this is made-up twaddle by a whole bunch of people. These people have a political axe to grind and do you know what, every week, the voters are going out in by elections and they are voting for Reform, because they’re not buying into this leftwing anti-Nigel narrative.

Whether or not racist voters are put off by their party leader being a Mosley fanboy is hardly proof that he wasn’t, but whatever.

But the BBC was racist!

Commenting on the Tice interview, Farage genuinely started referring to himself in the third person:

I thought this morning’s performance by one of your lower-grade presenters on the Today programme was utterly disgraceful. I think to frame a question around the leader of Reform’s relationship with Hitler, which is how she framed it, was despicable, disgusting beyond belief.

The ‘leader of Reform’ is you, Farage. Say ‘my’. Say ‘my relationship with Hitler’.

He then went on to rant about the “double standards and hypocrisy” of the BBC. He actually began to shout:

At the time I was alleged to have made these remarks, one of your most popular weekly shows was the black and white minstrels.

He also mentioned the blackface and/or homophobia in ‘It ain’t half hot mum’, ‘Are you being served’, and the comedy of Bernard Manning broadcast by the BBC at the time. As a side note, it’s nice of him to remember that homophobia outside of, you know, doing the homophobia himself. And, again, stating that there was racism on TV at the time isn’t exactly a denial there, Farage.

For what it’s worth, the BBC was still making brand new homophobic shows with blackface in them in 2010, i.e. Matt Lucas and David Walliams’ ‘Come Fly With Me’ and earlier ‘Little Britain’. Because, you know, the BBC never actually stopped being full of bigoted creeps. However, despite these shows being on the air whilst the writers at the Canary were growing up, we remarkably managed not to run around doing fucking Nazi salutes.

Please, oh please boycott the BBC

Farage went on to demand an apology from the BBC for “practically everything you did throughout the 1970s and 80s”. He also claimed to have received letters of support from other school fellows. One of them, he actually read out:

I was a Jewish pupil at Dulwich College at the same time, and I remember him very well. While there was plenty of macho, tongue-in-cheek schoolboy banter, it was humour. And yes, sometimes it was offensive… but never with malice.

I never heard him racially abuse anyone. If he had, it would’ve been reported and punished. He wasn’t.

So which is it? Was Farage engaging in offensive banter, or did he never racially abuse anyone? Because ‘it was funny though’ isn’t exactly a fucking defence. Likewise, a school failing to punish a racist bully is hardly proof that he wasn’t a racist bully.

Farage insisted that he wouldn’t engage with the BBC until the broadcaster issued him an apology to him for all of its bigoted content. Quite why it should apologise to Farage – a straight, white, English arsewipe – is beyond us. But still, it would be lovely to see Farage stick to his guns and stop basking in a disproportionate amount of the BBC’s airtime.

Then again, it would also be great to see the BBC actually reckon with the amount of bigotry it launders as entertainment. But then again, no more smug prick Farage on the BBC. This one really is a conundrum – can’t they both lose?

Featured image via WikiMedia