Nigel Farage repeatedly shouted the name of controversial comedian Bernard Manning at journalists as part of a bizarre rant after he was asked about allegations he racially abused a schoolmate.
The Reform UK leader also criticised the BBC over the blackface and homophobia he said it repeatedly broadcast in the 1970s, accusing the broadcaster of “double standards”.
The row erupted after Reform MP Richard Tice was asked about the allegations surrounding Mr Farage’s schooldays on the BBC’s Today programme earlier on Thursday.
Ducking a question about whether his former schoolmate was lying at a press conference, Mr Farage called the Today programme journalist Emma Barnett “lower grade”.
He then accused the broadcaster of “double standards and hypocrisy” because of television shows such as the Black and White Minstrels, which has been criticised for “blackface” and for featuring Mr Manning.
Mr Farage said: “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 name “Bernard Manning” at a journalist from ITV who asked a similar question.
The comedian, the self-styled king of the offensive joke, repeatedly came under fire for the content of his act.
In the 1990s he was secretly filmed telling racist jokes at a police charity dinner and criticised by then prime minister John Major. A Labour MP even asked the Attorney General to consider charging the comedian with inciting race hatred for the stream of racist insults and jokes.
Frank Manning, the nephew of Bernard, told The Independent he was “very disappointed to just hear Nigel’s comments. I know he’s just trying to flood the zone but he’s a fan of Bernard and shouldn’t have taken his name in vain.”
Mr Farage has been accused of “persistent” racial abuse by a school contemporary who rejects the Reform UK leader’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 told him “to the gas chambers” when the pair attended Dulwich College in the late 1970s.
He is among more than a dozen former pupils of the south London school who have accused Mr Farage of making antisemitic and racist remarks in claims originally reported in The Guardian.
The Reform UK leader appeared to leave open the possibility he may have made racist remarks without “intent” during his first interview since the claims were published, in which he told ITV: “I would never, ever do it in a hurtful or insulting way.” He also admitted to engaging in “banter in a playground”.
But in a prepared statement, he later “categorically” denied he had ever made such comments and suggested the claims were politically motivated.
The Tories said the press conference showed that “Reform’s one man band is in chaos once again.”
Labour chair Anna Turley said: “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 said he should “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.”
