The Deputy Prime Minister has been forced to climb down on claims he made that Nigel Farage leader had “flirted with Hitler Youth”.
David Lammy’s comments to the BBC appeared to reference allegations that emerged in 2013 that the Reform UK leader sang Nazi songs as a schoolboy.
Mr Farage denied the allegations at the time, which stemmed from a 1981 letter reportedly written by his teacher claiming the schoolboy and others marched through a village "shouting Hitler Youth songs".
Mr Lammy said on Tuesday: "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 judgments about someone who once flirted with Hitler Youth when he was younger."
In a later interview with BBC News, Mr Lammy said the Reform leader had denied the allegations, saying: "I accept that he has denied it."
He added: "I wasn't at school with Nigel Farage. I don't know what songs he sang at school."
In an interview with Nick Ferrari on LBC, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer rejected Mr Farage's claim that his painting of Reform policies as racist "will incite and encourage the radical left" and threaten the safety of Reform members.
Asked if he had put his political opponent at risk, the PM said: "No, that's not the case."
It came after Mr Farage claimed Sir Keir’s comments at the Labour Party conference "will incite and encourage the radical left" and "directly threatens the safety" of his party's campaigners as he accused the PM of descending "into the gutter".
Writing in the Daily Mail, Mr Farage said his opinion of Sir Keir had shifted as a result of the PM's comments.
"We might disagree on our worldview, but until this weekend I believed he was a reasonable human being," he said.
"Now I'm shocked at his behaviour. I hope that when he wakes up this morning, he feels ashamed of what he has done to British politics over the past few days."
