You may well have seen an historic racism row that is currently swirling around Nigel Farage. It centres around things he is alleged to have said whilst at school and his repeated denials of ever saying such things despite a plethora of witnesses asserting otherwise. He initially gave a very carefully caveated denial before coming out more vociferously, and then sending Richard Tice on media rounds to do the same on his behalf.

Leaving aside for a second whether Nigel Farage actually said the things alleged or not, from a PR point of view he seems to have played the whole issue very badly indeed. At one point, he took the line that he couldn’t possibly remember everything he said in his teens and it seems a poor show to be held to account for things said decades ago. This particular line seemed to me to be an especially foolish one for several reasons.

First, whilst I think the ‘I can’t remember everything I said as a teenager’ line is ordinarily a reasonable one, the issue is that quite a lot of other people were clearly remembering for him. Over 20 other pupils recall him saying overtly and racially offensive things. He may not remember, fair enough, but enough people seemingly do remember. I don’t remember everything I have ever said, but I’d be inclined to believe I said it nonetheless if 20 others were all adamant that I did. It minimally warranted an acknowledgment that, though one may not remember ever saying such things, I am sorry that I probably did say them given the overwhelming number of other people who seem to remember me doing so.

Second, I am also relatively sympathetic to the ‘everyone has said things they regret as teenagers’ line. I am sure that’s true. The issue here, however, isn’t that he may have said something he might now regret. The issue is that he denies ever saying the regrettable thing at all. That is, in the face of a significant number of people insisting he did. The story is not really about saying unfortunate things anymore, it is about being a liar. Had he simply said ‘yes, I think I did, I deeply regret it, and I am sorry for doing so’ the story would likely come to an end, not least because the above line about teenagers would (I suspect) then suffice.

Third, Richard Tice has been sent out and gone much further. Tice has insisted that all those making allegations are liars speaking “twaddle”. Even Farage himself has stopped short of insisting the people making allegations are lying. Tice has even suggested these things have never been raised before and they are politically motivated. When it has been pointed out to him that the allegations have, indeed, been made before and many of those making them do not belong to any particular party, he simply doubled down. I cannot imagine anyone being pleased to be a Reform press officer after those media rounds.

Fourth, and I think this is probably the biggest problem (if perhaps the least fair, if you are so minded to think so), plenty of people feel there is a fairly clear line to be drawn between comments made as a teenager and the politics that remain on display today. You may not think the politics of today have very much to do with racist comments of yesteryear. It doesn’t really matter. The point is that plenty of people do. It is a bit like when Donald Trump kept calling Joe Biden ‘Sleepy Joe’. It doesn’t matter whether you think the name is fair or reasonable, lots of people thought it was a fair reflection and it stuck. The allegations of racism of the past for Nigel Farage are sticking because enough people affirm they witnessed it, he initially didn’t deny it very credibly and, for many, there is enough of a whiff about his current politics to lend credence to the allegations.

Yesterday, in his latest attempt to rebuff the matter, Farage took exceptions to questions from the BBC. Journalists asked him about Tice’s comments calling his former classmates liars. Farage backed away from endorsing those comments (see here), but went on the offensive towards the BBC. Here is what he said:

The problem with this defence is that Farage tries to hold the BBC up as an example of double standards. There is plenty one can say about the BBC on the hypocrisy front, make no mistake about that. But in this one, the argument doesn’t really wash. The main issue being, the BBC are not denying having made those programmes nor that they aired them. They have also since taken them off the air and, in some cases, expressed regret over them. They are evidently not going to be making such programmes today. Compare this to Nigel Farage denying what multiple witnesses insist he did say, offering no sense of regret about these things and a broader feeling (fairly or unfairly) that his current politics lend some credit to the allegations.

Even aside from the rights and wrongs of the matter, aside from what actually happened, from a purely PR perspective this is a disaster for Reform. Even if he absolutely didn’t say the things alleged (you can decide for yourself), the problem Farage has is that a lot of people take him for the kind of man who potentially would have said them. It is not all the different to when Jeremy Corbyn was pictured in front of antisemitic tropes. He can protest all he likes that he had no idea, he can deny any knowledge of what the pictures meant, he may even be genuinely telling the truth, but none of that matters when quite a lot of people think he is the kind of person who probably wouldn’t have a problem with it.

That is really the problem here for Farage. Not that it is necessarily true (it may or may not be), but that many people think – on the basis of what they see now – he is the kind of man about whom this is precisely the kind of thing that rings true about him. And the more he denies it, the more people think he is lying. A purely political calculation – even if he absolutely didn’t say these things – might have claimed not to recall, and to insist one shouldn’t be held to account for all manner of stupid things said as a teen, but nevertheless to apologise unreservedly for probably having said them and for the hurt they caused.

The more he denies what most people think are precisely the kind of things a person like him would have said, the more he compounds the sense that not only did he probably say them, but he is also lying about it too. And that is really now the story. Not that Nigel Farage allegedly said some racist things decades ago, but that the man who would be Prime Minister can’t be trusted and won’t ever admit past mistake. Considering how well that went under BoJo on that front, how Farage himself lambasted Boris as a hypocrite and a liar, and considering Farage has always modelled himself as a straight, no-nonsense talker, this might well be a considerable problem for his particular brand. Interestingly, it may mean the only people who might remain true believers are those who have no problem with the racist things he is alleged to have said in the first place.