"Just as I was starting to write this column, an email alert popped up on my screen. Punters back Nigel for prime minister after Keir Starmer, it read, placing the Reform leader second in the odds market after Wes Streeting. What a weird, dissonant duality this is. Nigel Farage is in his fourth week of revelations about alleged racist behaviour at school, and yet, here we are."
"In my mind it manifests like a battle of physical forces, acting on one another. Journalistic investigations, testimonies, whistleblowers, all as a sort of storm that blows on a political actor who may be knocked off his feet, but still manages to cling on by his fingernails, until the gale blows over. Up scrambles Farage, a few pieces and more than a few polling points knocked off him, but still in place."
"This is, so far, what he is managing to survive the testimonies of some 28 of Farage's contemporaries at Dulwich college who have told the Guardian that they experienced or witnessed racist or antisemitic behaviour when he was a teenager. Jewish students were taunted; gas them, Farage said, Hitler was right. A black student, much younger than the then 17-year-old Farage, was told: That's the way back to Africa."
Betting markets briefly placed Nigel Farage near the top of prime minister odds despite ongoing allegations of racist and antisemitic behaviour from his school years. Around 28 contemporaries from Dulwich College reported they experienced or witnessed taunts and slurs, including statements such as 'gas them' and 'Hitler was right', and racist comments directed at a younger black student. The revelations have produced intense media scrutiny and testimony-driven pressure. Farage has denied some claims, refused to apologise, and attacked broadcasters. He has lost some polling support but remains politically resilient amid wavering public momentum.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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