Nigel Farage says young generation 'have become fascists'

Nigel Farage has claimed young people who call right-wing pundits “fascist” have become fascists themselves.

The former Ukip leader delivered a speech on the significance of the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s victory at Hillsdale College in Michigan, where he attacked liberal-minded university students who protested against right-wing speakers.

He said: “What I see is something very frightening happening with our younger people. Our educational establishments, through school, college and university, have become completely hijacked by the liberal left who are classically, according to the OED definition of it, the most illiberal people I’ve ever seen or meet in my life.

“They have breed amongst our younger people, not just to be indoctrinated to one point of view but to think the other point of view is unacceptable, should be protested against and even should be banned.

“This young generation who scream words like ‘fascist’ have actually themselves become the fascists.”

It comes after a former friend alleged that, as a teenager, Mr Farage boasted that he shared the same initials as fascist group the National Front and sang an anti-Semitic song.

In an open letter to the MEP, published by The Independent last year, the former friend of Mr Farage said he did not believe the politician still held the views he had as a teenager, but he felt it was important to break his silence after he saw the divisive rhetoric of the EU referendum campaign.

He highlighted a letter written by Mr Farage's former teacher, Chloe Deakin, to his parents where she said he had been accused of racist bullying, a letter leaked to Channel 4 in 2013.

He wrote: "I remember something altogether more alarming: the songs you chanted at school. In her letter Chloe Deakin mentioned reports of you singing Hitler Youth songs, and when you were confronted by that, you denied it.

"But I do remember you singing the song starting with the words ‘gas them all, gas ‘em all, gas them all’.

"I can’t forget the words. I can’t bring myself to write the rest of it for it is more vile that anything the teachers at Dulwich would ever have been aware of."

Mr Farage denied claims made in the 2013 letter.

He did not directly respond to the claims made by his former friend in The Independnet, but said: “To say that this is going over old ground is an understatement. The period during which I was at Dulwich was highly politically charged with the rise of Thatcherism to the Brixton riots just down the road.

“There were many people of that time who were attracted to extreme groups on both sides of the debate.”