Nigel Farage’s fury at BBC’s 70s sitcoms deflects schoolboy racism allegations

Nigel Farage raised his voice at a BBC journalist for questioning him over school day racism allegations when the broadcaster had screened blackface in the 1970s.

The Reform UK leader blasted the Beeb’s ‘double standards’ and demanded an apology for the Black and White Minstrels show, comedian Bernard Manning, Alf Garnett, and It Ain’t Half Hot Mum.

‘I cannot put up with the double standards at the BBC about what I’m alleged to have said 49 years ago, and what you were putting out on mainstream content,’ Farage said, growing visibly infuriated.

‘At the time I was alleged to have made these remarks, one of your most popular weekly shows was the Black and White Minstrel Show.

‘The BBC was very happy to use blackface – not just in the Black and White Minstrels, they did it in It Ain’t Half Hot Mum.

‘So I want an apology from the BBC for virtually everything you did throughout the 1970s and 80s.’

The Black and White Minstrel Show, saw white singers paint their faces black and attract audiences of 16million before it was cancelled in 1978.

He also ranted about the slur ‘Alf Garnett would call Marigold’ but stopped short of repeating it at a fiery press conference in London.

When quizzed by ITV, he spoke over them, repeating: ‘Bernard Manning… you were the channel of Bernard Manning.’

Farage has faced allegations he engaged in racist and antisemitic behaviour while he was a pupil at Dulwich College, a top private school in south London.

Labour said Mr Farage should be apologising to the victims of his alleged remarks and accused him of failing to keep his story straight on whether the allegations were true, while the Tories said his ‘rant’ showed Reform was in ‘chaos’.

Mr Farage’s former classmate, Peter Ettedgui, is among those who have accused him of making racist remarks to him during their school days.

Mr Ettedgui, who is Jewish, has claimed that Mr Farage had ‘repeatedly’ approached him and said ‘Hitler was right’, while they were pupils at the school.

At the press conference, Mr Farage continued to deny he ever made racist remarks in a ‘malicious or nasty way’.

He also read out a letter he said he had received from a former schoolmate at Dulwich College, who said he never heard the Reform UK leader racially abuse anyone.

Mr Farage read: ‘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, he would have been reported and punished. He wasn’t. The news stories are without evidence, except for belatedly, politically dubious recollections from nearly half a century ago.

‘Back in the 1970s the culture was very different … especially at Dulwich.

‘Lots of boys said things they’d regret today or just laugh at.

‘Whilst Nigel stood out, he was neither aggressive nor a racist.’

The Labour Party said the Clacton MP could not keep his ‘story straight’ about whether the allegations against him were true or not.

Labour Party chairwoman Anna Turley said: ‘Nigel Farage can’t get his story straight. It really shouldn’t be this difficult to say whether he racially abused people in the past.

‘So far, he’s claimed he can’t remember, that it’s not true, that he never ‘directly’ abused anyone, that he was responsible for ‘offensive banter’, and deflected by saying other people were racist too.

‘Instead of shamelessly demanding apologies from others, Nigel Farage should be apologising to the victims of his alleged appalling remarks.

‘Reform want to drag our politics into the gutter. They are simply not fit for high office.’,

Sir Keir Starmer, meanwhile, called Reform UK ‘pro-Putin or Putin-neutral’ as a party and said the UK could never be part of the ‘coalition of the willing’ of countries supporting Ukraine with Mr Farage as prime minister.

‘So when you ask me what’s wrong with Reform. Well, a pro-Russian party that couldn’t play a meaningful part in Nato, that couldn’t possibly secure … peace in Ukraine, would not be able to work with European partners, because they wouldn’t trust a party that is Putin-positive and has pro-Russian links.

‘All of that falls away with Reform,’ the Prime Minister told The Economist.

Mr Farage said at the press conference that it ‘makes me laugh’ that he is called ‘pro-Putin because I once said in 2013 I admired him as a leader, but disliked him as a human being, and wouldn’t live in the Soviet Union.’

‘Shortly after, I’m a Russian asset, apparently, according to Starmer, for doing that.

‘The year after that, the Queen met him. Whether she was a Russian asset, I’m not entirely sure.’