During the last couple of weeks, President Trump’s helter-skelter ride – from Minneapolis to Venezuela, from Iran to Greenland – has transfixed onlookers around the world. White House acolytes have genuflected amidst a standing ovation on his every word. Europeans have wrung their hands in silence and hoped for a parallel universe.
Many concerned Diaspora Jews agreed with the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, when he spoke rationally and eloquently of the rupture of respect for the rule of law, human dignity and national sovereignty.
One group of the usual Trump flatterers, however, was not amused by the president’s obsession to annex Greenland in its entirety. The populist Right in many countries did not take kindly to Trump’s trampling on the principle of national sovereignty – as a matter of ideology. Given Trump’s unpredictability, if it could happen to Denmark, it could happen anywhere.
In the UK, Nigel Farage’s Reform party similarly uttered a rare rejection of Trump’s bullying imperialism. His comments desecrating the NATO war dead in Afghanistan poured more oil on troubled waters.
Many British Jews fear the advance of the populist Right. Numerous polls indicate that Reform will emerge as the biggest party at the next UK general election and that Farage is currently the frontrunner to become prime minister.
Farage has projected himself as a cheeky chappie, a vaudevillian entertainer, overflowing with bonhomie – a straight-talking man of the people, holding his pint glass.
But during the last couple of months tales of his teenage schooldays at the fee-paying Dulwich College in South London have come to light amidst testimony from a host of fellow pupils of a tidal swell of antisemitic comments.
During the 1990s, Farage was secretly filmed telling racist jokes at a police charity dinner which was criticised by the then prime minister, John Major. While Farage was therefore known to have form regarding Blacks and Asians, his attitude towards Jews was relatively unknown.
That has changed over the past couple of months, as The Guardian has published the recollections of his contemporaries from the 1980s which catalogue Farage’s antisemitic utterances.
Memory, of course, can play tricks but can 34 people – at the last count – all be wrong? A young teacher actually asked the Master of Dulwich College to reconsider appointing Farage as a prefect – and was fobbed off with a condescending smile. Did she too mistakenly recall this incident?
One shy Jewish pupil, Peter Ettedgui, now a noted film writer, whose grandparents had escaped from Nazi Germany, was incessantly picked on by Farage who told him that he was “a stupid Yid”. Farage was a leader of the College’s Cadet Force and led its young members in communal singing on coach trips. The ditty sung was a transformation of Bless ‘em All, the World War II song which praised British service men and women who stood firm against the Nazis.
One friend from those days, Jean-Pierre Lihou, recalled Farage’s version of the song:
Gas ‘em all
Into the chambers they crawl
We’ll gas all the Pakis
And we’ll gas all the Yids
And we’ll gas all the coons
And all their fucking kids
Farage also jokingly goosestepped around the College playground gleefully chanting “Oswald Ernald Mosely” – the leader of the British Union of Fascists during the 1930s.
Peter Ettedgui told the Guardian how it had affected him: “The tone of his voice, his physical posture, these are all intensely ingrained, as was the emotional impact – degrading, humiliating.”
Youthful stupidity? Bad taste banter? A juvenile indiscretion, sung to annoy the teachers? Or hard-core antisemitism without the railings?
Perhaps a clue can be found in the response of the adult Farage. He has shown no contrition and couched his changing responses in caveats: “I cannot remember”; “Playground banter is interpreted different today”; “Antisemitic comments, had it happened, would be reprehensible”; “I have never ‘directly abused anyone”; “It was misspoken as I was a child”; “These are completely made-up fantasies”; “These accusations are politically motivated.”
A Reform spokesperson stated there was “no corroborating evidence” against Farage and in any case, it was one person’s word against another. (BBC News November 19) Farage himself claimed that he had received letters of support from Jews in his defence.
These revelations evoked an anguished response from 11 Holocaust survivors. Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, a cellist and a member of the Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz, said: “Praising Hitler, mocking gas chambers, or hurling racist abuse is not banter. Not in a playground. Not anywhere. (The Independent, November 25)
However, what is remarkable about Farage’s behaviour, dating from the late ’70s and early ‘80s, is that Jews were maligned so soon after the Holocaust. At the time, the populist Right was careful then to attack only newer immigrants. They were an easier target and the time-honoured tradition of attacking Jews was to be avoided.
There was another weapon in Farage’s toolbox of explanations. “What was acceptable then is not acceptable today.” This, however, applied back then to Blacks and Asians – and not to Jews. An example given by Reform’s defence of Farage was that of the Black and White Minstrels television show of the 1970s whereby white men blacked up to perform.
The anti-immigrant vehicle at that time was the National Front which Nigel Farage pointed out had the same initials as his own. Farage was always careful to walk the tightrope of the Populist Right. On the one hand, he proclaimed himself to be a Conservative party member and an admirer of Enoch Powell – a far-Right intellectual and ideologue, famous for his “Rivers of Blood” speech in 1968 which caricatured the immigration from the British Commonwealth. On the other hand, he kept his distance from contemporary figures such as Tommy Robinson whose rabble rousing had earned him several prison sentences.
Yet occasionally Farage alluded to the Jews. In 2017, he spoke about “the might of the American Jewish lobby” and mentioned “globalists” a few years later.
Yet one would have thought that Jewish organisations would have been the first to ask questions and demand answers from Farage. Instead of loud condemnations and noisy protests, it was more the silence of the lambs.
On this occasion, Jewish representative organisations did not stand with the victims of antisemitism. The logic has been that Farage is on an upward trajectory and might enter the prime minister’s residence in 10 Downing Street in a couple of years. So silence is definitely golden and there was no need to awaken the sleeping dragon.
Yet it does raise the question: Are some antisemites acceptable and others are not? Is Jeremy Corbyn disreputable while Nigel Farage is not?
It can be argued that Corbyn was always an ideological supporter of the Palestinian cause who would not compromise while Farage was little more than an opportunist adept at exploiting a situation. Someone who can be cultivated.
At a time of heightened sensitivity towards antisemitism, Jewish leadership has clearly followed the second option in the hope that it will all work out well. Indeed, several recent high-profile defectors from the Conservative party have Jewish spouses.
Nigel Farage is an astute political player and someone whom Donald Trump wanted as the British Ambassador to Washington. Someone who was a central advocate in persuading 52% of voters to leave the European Union in 2016.
The local elections in the UK are due in May and Reform is predicted to sweep the board. Only then will it become clear whether the Reform party remains one composed of eccentric nationalists, conspiracy theorists and loudmouthed racists who may yet evolve to become another cog in a destabilised new world order.
Jewish Independent 2 February 2026