Farage repeatedly shouts ‘Bernard Manning’ at journalists amid racism allegations | EUROtoday

Nigel Farage repeatedly shouted the identify of controversial comic Bernard Manning at journalists as a part of a weird rant after he was requested about allegations he racially abused a schoolmate.

The Reform UK chief additionally criticised the BBC over the blackface and homophobia he mentioned it repeatedly broadcast within the Seventies, accusing the broadcaster of “double standards”.

It got here as prime minister Keir Starmer launched a brand new blistering assault on the Reform UK chief accusing him of being “toxic and divisive” throughout a visit to Scotland.

The row erupted after Reform MP Richard Tice was requested in regards to the allegations surrounding Mr Farage’s schooldays on the BBC’s Today programme earlier on Thursday.

Ducking a query about whether or not his former schoolmate was mendacity at a press convention, Mr Farage referred to as the Today programme journalist Emma Barnett “lower grade”.

He then accused the broadcaster of “double standards and hypocrisy” due to tv programmes corresponding to The Black and White Minstrel Showwhich has been criticised for “blackface” and for that includes Mr Manning.

Mr Farage mentioned: “I cannot put up with the double standards of the BBC about what I’m alleged to have said 49 years ago and what you were putting out on mainstream content.

“So, I want an apology from the BBC for virtually everything you did throughout the 1970s and 80s.”

He later shouted the identify “Bernard Manning” at a journalist from ITV who requested the same query.

The comic, the self-styled king of the offensive joke, repeatedly got here beneath fireplace for the content material of his act.

In the Nineteen Nineties, he was secretly filmed telling racist jokes at a police charity dinner and criticised by then prime minister John Major. A Labour MP even requested the legal professional common to think about charging the comic with inciting racial hatred for the stream of racist insults and jokes.

Mr Farage has been accused of “persistent” racial abuse by a faculty up to date who rejects the Reform UK chief’s claims it was “banter”.

Peter Ettedgui, whose Jewish grandparents escaped Nazi Germany, has alleged Mr Farage growled “Hitler was right”, hissed “gas them” and advised him “to the gas chambers” when the pair attended Dulwich College within the late Seventies.

He is amongst greater than a dozen former pupils of the south London faculty who’ve accused Mr Farage of constructing antisemitic and racist remarks in claims initially reported in The Guardian.

The Reform UK chief appeared to go away open the likelihood he could have made racist remarks with out “intent” throughout his first interview for the reason that claims have been printed, through which he advised ITV: “I would never, ever do it in a hurtful or insulting way.” He additionally admitted to participating in “banter in a playground”.

But in a ready assertion, he later “categorically” denied he had ever made such feedback and instructed the claims have been politically motivated.

The Tories mentioned the press convention confirmed that “Reform’s one man band is in chaos once again.”

Labour chair Anna Turley mentioned: “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.”

She mentioned he ought to “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.”

Meanwhile, on a visit to Scotland, Sir Keir responded to Nigel Farage’s feedback on the variety of schoolchildren who communicate English describing him as “toxic” and “divisive”.

He mentioned: “He’s a disgrace. He’s a toxic, divisive disgrace. All he wants to do is tear communities apart. In Glasgow, the diversity, the compassion, is celebrated. It’s part of, not just Glasgow, but Scotland.

“I am proud that that is part of what Scotland is. And I, as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, want to serve every community in Scotland.

“I don’t go around picking and choosing and trying to divide. I think it’s particularly poor that he’s reached right into children now to start that divide. All he’s interested in is the politics of grievance, and the politics of division, and he’s doing it to distract because what he doesn’t want to be asked about is the comments that he’s made in the past, which he can’t give a proper explanation for.”

The Independent has requested Reform UK for a response to the prime minister’s feedback.