Back in 2025 (remember 2025?), the Guardian broke a story that surprised no one who pays attention to the British news: Nigel Farage–head of the right-wing populist Reform Party, face of the Brexit campaign, and beer-drinking, former commodities trading, expensive-suit-wearing man-of-the-people–was known, as a schoolboy, for racist bullying.

Such as? According to his fellow former students, he said things like “Hitler was right” and “Gas then all.” Other incidents, which don’t condense as neatly onto a list, involve him asking Black students where they were from and then “pointing away, saying: ‘That’s the way back.’ ”

It is understood by a certain category of British racist that no dark-skinned person is from Britain. If they were born abroad, that’s where they’re from, even if they came to Britain as an infant. And if they were born in Britain, it doesn’t count: they’re still from the country some ancestor was born in. 

Farage’s comments were part of a pattern he was, apparently, known for–a pattern that included leading students in racist songs.

Apparently? Well, I wasn’t there, but a number of fellow former students have told similar stories. Some who’ve gone public were on the receiving end and some were witnesses. 

This all happened in what the British call a public school, which in case you’re not British I should explain means it isn’t public, it’s private. And expensive. The kind of place every budding man-of-the-people is sent by his well-established parents-of-the-people.

Irrelevant photo: a neighbor’s camellia, blooming in December

Ah, but the story isn’t complete until we have a denial

I said no one who’d been paying attention was surprised, but I exaggerated: Farage’s Reform Party was surprised. It never happened, the party said. And Farage’s barrister said the same thing, although in fancier language: he never “engaged in, condoned, or led racist or antisemitic behaviour.” 

Farage was also surprised, although instead of saying it never happened he said something I’ll translate to, It didn’t happen like that so it doesn’t count. In one denial (ask Lord Google for “Farage denies racism” and you can take your pick of links), he said he “never directly racially abused anybody.” 

Directly abused them? 

Do I have to explain everything? That’s the opposite of indirectly abusing them. He described his comments as “banter in the playground” and said, “I would never, ever do it in a hurtful or insulting way.”

Would he apologize? 

“No . . . because I don’t think I did anything that directly hurt anybody.”

The people who were on the receiving end have, shall we say, different memories of it all. One said that after his “existence as a target was established” Farage–who was considerably older than him–would wait for him at the school gate  “so he could repeat the vulgarity.”

Another talks about Farage’s comments as “racial intimidation,” and a third–a witness–described one of his targets as being “tormented.”

As denials will, Farage’s have succeeded in keeping the story alive and bringing more former students out of the woodwork to say, Yes, I remember that happening.

Meanwhile, when a BBC interviewer pushed Farage to answer some awkward questions, Farage accused it of hypocrisy. Hadn’t it broadcast shows in the  1970s that wouldn’t meet today’s more delicate standards? He also threatened to sue it. And to boycott it.

I can’t imagine he’ll follow through with the boycott, but I for one would be happy to see the BBC become a Farage-free zone.

Free speech

You see where he’s going with this,right? He’s trying to cast it as a free speech issue. Asked whether he’d said things that might have offended people, he answered, “Without any shadow of a doubt. 

“And without any shadow of a doubt I shall say things tonight on this stage that some people will take offence to and will use pejorative terms about.

“That is actually in some ways what open free speech is. Sometimes you say things that people don’t like.”

Which is why you threaten to sue the broadcaster who said them. 

Comparative racism 101

If this were just about Farage, I’d leave it to the newspapers and the broadcast media to cover the story. They can do a better job of it than I can. The reason I’m picking up on it is that it speaks to something that fascinates me about British racism. Or maybe that’s English racism. I’ll never figure out which is which. As a friend tells me her immigrant grandmother used to say (about all kinds of things), “For that I am not long enough in this country.”

Thank you, Jane. And thank you, Jane’s grandmother, who I wish I could’ve known.

I don’t expect I ever will be long enough in this country to figure out what’s English and what’s British. I’d be grateful for any insights, guidance, wild guesses, or general wiseassery on the subject.

But enough lead-in. What’s the oddity? Many people of the white persuasion judge whether something they’ve done or said is racist not by its impact but by how it was meant. If they judge themselves not to be racist, then whatever they’ve done or said can’t be racist. Because it wasn’t meant as racism. Which means they don’t have to change. Because their intent is pure.