Antisemitism allegations against the teenage Farage matter – look at what he went on to do | Jonathan Freedland

Farage has cosied up to US figures who espoused conspiracy theories about Jews. That kind of talk is becoming alarmingly mainstream on the Maga right

Nigel Farage could have strangled this story at birth. Confronted with the testimony of more than 20 former schoolmates, who shared with the Guardian their memories of a young Farage taunting Jews and other minorities in the most appalling terms – telling a Jewish pupil that “Hitler was right”, singing “Gas ’em all” and making a hissing sound to simulate lethal gas – he could have said: “I have no memory of what’s been described, but such behaviour would of course have been atrocious and if I was involved in any way, I am genuinely sorry.”

Sure, it would have been more of an “ifpology” than an apology, its admission of guilt wholly conditional, but it would surely have closed the story down. Reassured that the Reform UK leader had declared racist and antisemitic abuse unacceptable, most observers would have allowed that these events took place half a century ago and moved on.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

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