Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy rowed back on claims Nigel Farage “flirted with Hitler Youth”.
Lammy’s comments were an apparent reference to allegations that emerged in 2013 that Farage sang Nazi songs as a teenager.
The Reform UK leader denied the allegations at the time, which centred on a claim that as a schoolboy in the late 1970s and early 1980s he and others marched through a village “shouting Hitler Youth songs”.
A Reform source told News: “It’s disgusting and libellous. Beneath contempt.”
On Sunday, Sir Keir Starmer described Reform UK’s policy of scrapping indefinite leave to remain as “racist” and “immoral”.
Since then senior Labour figures have been careful to try to draw a distinction between calling a policy of Reform UK “racist” but insisting they’re not using the same label about the party’s supporters.
In his conference speech, the prime minister stepped up his attacks on Farage and Reform, claiming they did not love their country and were only interested in stirring division.
He also vowed to fight racist rhetoric “with everything we have”.
Speaking after the speech on the ‘s Politics Live, Lammy was asked whether he thought Farage was a racist.
He said the PM had been calling out policies “that would line people up who have a right to be in this country, who might be Indian, who might be Nigerian, and send them home”.
He added: “It’s not British. It doesn’t respect our values.
“I’m not going to play the man. I’m playing the ball, as our leader did.
“I will leave it for the public to come to their own judgements about someone who once flirted with Hitler Youth when he was younger.”
Shortly after making the comments, Lammy said he was “happy to clarify” them, in an interview with the News Channel.
“He [Farage] has denied it and so I accept that he has denied it and I would like to clarify that position because in the end the prime minister is keen for us to focus on the policies not the individuals.”
The deputy prime minister added: “I wasn’t at school with Nigel Farage. I don’t know what songs he sang at school.
“I’m happy to clarify. I did say it’s for the public to make up their mind and I did also emphasise that let us play the ball, not the man.”