Starmer calls Farage ‘spineless’ over school racism allegations

Sir Keir Starmer has hit out at Nigel Farage over allegations of schoolboy racism and comments by one of Reform UK’s MPs, saying “the man is spineless”.

Speaking to journalists as he travelled to the G20 in South Africa, the prime minister called on Farage to “explain” the comments reported in the Guardian “as soon as possible”.

The newspaper published details on Tuesday of allegedly racist behaviour by the Reform UK leader when he was a teenager at Dulwich College.

The reports, which Farage denies, are from more than 12 of his contemporaries at the London private school, including accusations he targeted minority ethnic children with abuse and sang a song called “gas ’em all” about the killing of Jewish, black and south-east Asian people.

After raising the comments at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Starmer told reporters on the flight to Johannesburg: “He hasn’t got a good track record in relation to this because Sarah Pochin, his MP, made some clearly racist comments and Nigel Farage has done absolutely nothing about it,” he said.

“The man is spineless. If that had been someone in my party, I’d have dealt with it straight away.”

“So far, he’s said absolutely nothing about it. He’s got plenty to say about plenty of things, apart from showing some leadership when it comes to racism,” he said.

Runcorn and Helsby MP Sarah Pochin said last month: “It drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people.”

Farage condemned the comments as “ugly” but would not label them racist.

Responding to Starmer’s remarks, Farage said: “For the weakest prime minister in living memory to call me spineless is utterly ludicrous. The voters will have their say on both of us at the ballot box next May”.

Downing Street called the allegations about Farage’s behaviour as a teenager “disturbing” on Wednesday.

In response to the allegations in the Guardian, a spokesman for Reform UK said: “These allegations are entirely without foundation.

“The Guardian has produced no contemporaneous record or corroborating evidence to support these disputed recollections from nearly 50 years ago.

“It is no coincidence that this newspaper seeks to discredit Reform UK — a party that has led in over 150 consecutive opinion polls and whose leader bookmakers now have as the favourite to be the next prime minister.

“We fully expect these cynical attempts to smear Reform and mislead the public to intensify further as we move closer to the next election.”