RT Nigel Farage blasted the 'ludicrous' claims

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The departing Ukip leader was tackled in a TV interview over recent claims he sang neo-Nazi songs and doodled the National Front symbol on his school books while a pupil at fee-paying Dulwich College. Appearing on Sam Delaney’s News Thing on the Kremlin-funded Russia Today channel, Mr Farage dismissed allegations made by an anonymous ‘schoolfriend’ of the politician. Asked whether he was a ‘fascist’ while at the posh south London school, Mr Farage said: “No, of course not. We've had this for years and it goes on and on and on.” He added: “This is ludicrous some of this stuff.”

Mr Farage had explained how he had been attracted at a young age to the ideology of ex-prime minister Margaret Thatcher as well as Tory MP Enoch Powell’s criticism of the European Economic Community, the forerunner of the European Union. The MEP revealed such views were considered “awful” by the “lefty sort of 1960s student types” who were his teachers at the college. He added: “Did I at times wind people up and take the p*** a bit? Yes.”

Did I at times wind people up and take the p*** a bit? Yes. Nigel Farage

Earlier in the interview, Mr Farage had said it was “not a bad achievement” for him to have “almost single-handedly destroyed the far-right in British politics”. He said: “I destroyed the British National Party. We had a far-right party in this country who genuinely were anti-Jew, anti-Black, all of those things. “I came along, and said to their voters, if you’re holding your nose and voting for this party as a protest, don’t; come and vote for me – I’m not against anybody, I just want us to start putting British people first.”

Nigel Farage in pictures Mon, April 3, 2017 Nigel Farage is a British politician who has been the leader of the UK Independence Party since October 2016. Play slideshow Getty 1 of 48 Nigel Farage in pictures