During his years at Dulwich College in the late 1970s and early 80s, Farage’s contemporaries allege he was racist.
Yinka Bankole claimed that Farage told him to go “back to Africa,” on at least three occasions while they were schoolboys. Bankole was nine and 10 at the time of these alleged incidents; Farage was 17. James Varcoe recalled Farage “used the N-word”.
Jason Meredith alleged Farage called him a “paki” and told him to “go back home”. Peter Ettedgui alleged that Farage taunted him with antisemitic comments, including that “Hitler was right” and hissing to mimic the sound of gas being released after saying “gas them”. Another claimed Farage burned a copy of the school roll when there were more Patels than Smiths.
In his biography, Farage described meeting Enoch Powell during his schooldays, writing that the far-right “rivers of blood” MP had “dazzled me for once into an awestruck silence”. (Later, Farage would ask for Powell’s endorsement, and twice requested, unsucessfully, that Powell stand as a Ukip candidate.)
Chloë Deakin, a teacher at Dulwich, wrote to Dulwich’s head teacher in 1981, citing Farage’s alleged “publicly professed racist and neo-fascist views”. Deakin wrote of an incident where “Farage and others had marched through a quiet Sussex village very late at night shouting Hitler Youth songs”.
In 2013, Farage responded to this letter, denying – among other things – he knew any “Hitler Youth songs, in English or German”.
“Of course I said some ridiculous things,” Farage said, “not necessarily racist things. It depends how you define it.” He also acknowledged that some of his comments “would offend deeply”.
But Farage’s denials have shifted over time. He has claimed he only engaged in “banter”, then “aggressive banter”, while labelling some claims – including those made by Bankole and Ettedgui, as “complete fantasy land”.
“Any accusation [that] I was ever involved in far-right politics is utterly untrue”, Farage has said.
The Kipper years
Nigel Farage was a founding member of Ukip in 1993, and led the party between 2006 and 2016.
Former Ukip leader Alan Sked alleged that Farage “wanted ex-National Front candidates to run” in the 1997 general election. Sked was sceptical, at which point Sked alleges that Farage said: “There’s no need to worry about the nigger vote. The nig-nogs will never vote for us.” Farage denies this.
Farage was a member of the European parliament (MEP) for Ukip from 1999 to 2020. During his time in Brussels, Farage had one of the worst attendance records, and appeared at just one of 42 fisheries committee meetings.
The behaviour of Ukip candidates under Farage’s leadership was astonishing. One Ukip parliamentary candidate referred to gay men as “fucking disgusting old poofters”, while another council candidate stated Ed Miliband, who is Jewish, was “not a real Brit’, that “most Nigerians are bad people” and that Islam is an “evil organisation”.
As it happens, my first encounter with Farage was while reporting at Ukip’s 2015 spring conference, during which I was handed a flyer which stated: “What the LGBT is achieving, of course, is a recruitment drive … They must recruit fresh blood and this is best done among children in schools, the younger the better.”
Expenses
In 2014 it emerged MEP Farage claimed £15,500 in annual expenses for office costs, despite paying no rent on the small property where he worked. In total, he claimed more than £205,000.
Almost £60,000 of “missing” European Union funds were said to have been paid into Farage’s personal bank account (Farage defended his use of these funds, and faced no formal disciplinary sanction). Farage also faced claims from former staff that he “transferred European funds” into accounts “he controlled … in the Cayman Islands and the Isle of Man”.
In 2018, Farage was docked €40,000 (£35,500) from his MEP salary, after European parliament auditors concluded he had misspent EU funds in a separate inquiry.
“I can spend my EU allowances as I see fit,” Farage told Sky News. He also argued that MEPs don’t claim expenses, but were given flat-rate amounts to use at their discretion.
After the Brexit vote, Arron Banks gave Farage £450,000 in funding, which was not declared to EU authorities.
After becoming MP for Clacton in 2024, Farage was found to have breached the MPs’ code of conduct 17 times, failing to declare £380,000 of income on time. Since becoming an MP in 2024, Farage’s income has reached £2m – with criticism mounting over his non-parliamentary work. In 2025, Farage declared a £400,000 a year salary for promoting gold bullion for four hours per month.
Miscellaneous
Despite condemning tax avoiders, Farage set up a trust fund in an offshore tax haven. He bemoaned waste in Brussels, then boasted of claiming millions in MEP expenses. He criticised MEPs who put their spouses on payroll (“no exceptions”), then did precisely that himself (£).
In 2014, he refused to support same-sex marriage (“a very big can of worms”), and called for people who have tested positive for HIV to be banned from migrating to Britain.
In an LBC interview the same year, Farage said you’d be concerned if Romanians moved in next door, but not Germans. “You know what the difference is,” Farage said. He later backtracked.
Farage sold videos in which he endorsed a neo-Nazi event, referenced antisemitic conspiracy theories, called for the release of a convicted sex offender, expressed support for the IRA and made misogynistic remarks – including about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s breasts.
Farage denies a 2006 story in which a 25-year-old woman allegedly took him to her home, staggering drunk, from a pub where, she claims, they made love seven times after which Farage was “snoring like a horse”.
The £5m
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage in November. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
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