UK's Farage under pressure over teenage racism allegations

Hard-right British lawmaker Nigel Farage faced growing scrutiny Thursday over allegations he made racist and antisemitic comments while a youngster at an elite English school.

The leader of the anti-immigrant Reform UK party, currently tipped by polls to become Britain's next prime minister, has offered different defences to the claims since they resurfaced last week.

He noted Wednesday that a former pupil who said Farage had verbally abused him had "different political views to me" but added he was "genuinely sorry" if the man felt "hurt".

Film director Peter Ettedgui, who is Jewish, told The Guardian newspaper that Farage engaged in offensive behaviour while a pupil at Dulwich College, an exclusive private school in south London, in the 1970s.

He said the future politician would "sidle up to me and growl: 'Hitler was right,' or 'gas them', sometimes adding a long hiss to simulate the sound of the gas showers".

Brexit champion Farage, 61, told reporters at a press conference Wednesday that he "never, ever, ever would have said or done anything like that directly to a human being".

He was less categorical during an interview with broadcasters on Monday when he was repeatedly asked whether he could rule out having engaged in racial abuse.

"I would never, ever do it in a hurtful or insulting way," he replied, later adding that if he had, it was "not with intent".

- 'Banter' -

The Eurosceptic also said he might have been responsible for some "banter in a playground" that could be interpreted in "the modern light of day in some sort of way".

Reform then released a statement Tuesday in which Farage 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."

Ettedgui, a Bafta and Emmy-award winning director, has told the BBC that Farage was being "fundamentally dishonest" by suggesting school contemporaries were not telling the truth.

The Guardian said its report, first published last week, was based on allegations from more than a dozen former pupils.

One classmate claimed that Farage sang a racist song and performed the Nazi "Sieg Heil" salute, while another alleged that as a prefect, the future politician put a child in detention because of his skin colour.

Some of the claims have been reported previously, including more than a decade ago by veteran political reporter Michael Crick.

Reform won its first MPs at last year's general election and has since soared to double-digit leads in opinion polls over Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Labour party.

The hard-right upstarts have also been under pressure in recent days over the sentencing to more than ten years in prison of its former leader in Wales, Nathan Gill.

He admitted being paid around £40,000 ($53,000) to make pro-Russian statements in the European Parliament.

Starmer said Wednesday that the racism allegations against Farage showed Reform's "true colours". He also accused the party of being "riddled with pro-Putin propaganda".