Nigel Farage accused of telling pupil to go back to Africa

Yinka Bankole claimed he had just started at the school when a 17-year-old Nigel Farage singled him out for abuse, and that he was speaking out after the Reform UK leader dismissed the allegations

Nigel Farage has been accused of telling a classmate to “that’s the way back to Africa”.

Yinka Bankole claimed he had just started at the same school as the Reform UK leader when a 17-year-old Mr Farage singled him out for abuse.

Mr Bankole, whose parents moved to the UK from Nigeria in the 1950s, claimed he decided to share his story after seeing Reform UK leader’s attempt at “denying or dismissing ” the hurt of his alleged targets.

Speaking on LBC, Mr Bankole explained the moment he decided to go public with the comments, made more than four decades ago.

He said: “When you know someone who has actually shown so much hate towards your existence – based on how you look – for me the trigger point was me listening to him like that When he pretends to be a victim – that triggered me.

“How can a man like him be PM in a multicultural forward looking country.”

Asked whether an apology would be accepted and allow Mr Bankole to move forward, he said: “It’s not for me to dictate how bullies should carry themselves.

“My position is to express what happened so the public knows about it… so that we know what the people who are putting themselves for office are really like.”

Mr Bankole told how Mr Farage would allegedly “approach and ask where are you from – without me answering he just said: “go back to Africa”.

He added: Without knowing my name, but just looking at me with what appeared to be no appreciation of my humanity and simply because of how I looked.”

Mr Farage had lost his cool with a BBC reporter this week after being asked about allegations of racism by former classmates this week, and in a furious rant demanded an apology for offensive BBC programmes in the 1970s and 80s – the time the claims against him go back to.

Mr Farage said: “Let me say this to you – the double standards and hypocrisy of the BBC are absolutely astonishing.

“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 said it was “despicable” that Mr Tice had earlier been asked about “the leader of Reform’s relationship with Hitler”. Mr Tice dismissed the allegations against his leader as “made-up twaddle”.

More than a dozen former classmates from Mr Farage’s time at Dulwich College, in south London, alleged that Mr Farage made pro-Hitler comments, joked about gas chambers, and put someone in detention for the colour of their skin.

Mr Farage has dismissed the claims, from decades ago – and insisted he would never racially abuse people in a “hurtful or insulting way”. Reform UK has categorically denied the claims and claimed the allegations are part of a smear campaign against the party leader.

Reform UK has been approached for comment.