Was Nigel Farage a racist as a boy? I wrote his biography and this is what I believe

As the Reform leader faces allegations about his behaviour as a schoolboy at Dulwich College, Michael Crick reveals his thoughts about the teenage Farage and the man he is today

- Michael Crick

I've written five political biographies in my time as a journalist and broadcast numerous television profiles. I especially love delving into people’s childhoods and schooldays for early clues of what was to come. And for Nigel Farage, more than anyone else I've studied, one can see so many aspects of the Reform leader of today in his teenage self.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Farage, now 61, attended Dulwich College, the distinguished south London private school whose alumni include Ernest Shackleton and PG Wodehouse. In the sixth form, Farage stood out among his slovenly, scruffy peers for always wearing a neat, spotless jacket and tie, and highly polished leather shoes. He loved discussion and argument. When his teacher organised class debates and called for a volunteer to propose the motion, Farage's hand would shoot up. If rejected, he'd volunteer for the opposite side.

He was known for being provocative and disruptive with his views, and for enjoying winding up trendy, left-wing English masters. Farage now is strikingly like the Farage of then. Then, as later, the Dulwich schoolboy could be disruptive and divisive. As a teenager, he was impressed by two well-known speakers who visited the college: Enoch Powell and Margaret Thatcher's key philosophical mentor, Keith Joseph, whose speech he's since said encouraged him to join the Conservative Party. It was during this time that Farage developed the English nationalist outlook we see today, with particular concerns about immigration.

In 2013, I made a film for Channel 4 News, which included a letter from a young teacher, Chloe Deakin, to David Emms, the Dulwich headmaster (formally called “The Master”). In it, she opposed his decision in 1981 to make Farage a prefect at 17, describing him as having “publicly professed racist and neo-fascist views”.