Ukip leader defends vile rape tweet sent to Labour MP as ‘satire’
‘He is a proponent of free speech’
THE leader of Ukip has defended a candidate who sent a tweet about rape to a Labour MP.
Gerard Batten claimed that the message was ‘satire’. He also denied accusations that the party has moved to the ‘far Right’ and become obsessed with Islam under his leadership.
He dismissed criticism of his decision to allow controversial YouTube personality Carl Benjamin to stand for Ukip in the South West in next month’s European Parliament elections.
Mr Benjamin previously sent a message on Twitter to Labour MP Jess Phillips saying that ‘I wouldn’t even rape you’.
Mr Batten defended the tweet on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show yesterday, saying: ‘I think this was satire.’
Calling the candidate ‘a classical liberal’, Mr Batten said: ‘I don’t know the exact context of that and I certainly don’t condone Gerard Batten MP Jess Phillips any remarks like that but he is not a bad person as he’s being portrayed. He is a proponent of free speech. The context [in which] he said it was satire against the people he was saying it about. He wasn’t actually making a literal statement.’
Mr Benjamin reportedly sent the tweet in 2016 when responding to Mrs Phillips having written: ‘People talking about raping me isn’t fun, but has become somewhat par for the course.’
He replied: ‘I wouldn’t even rape you, Jess Phillips.’
Mrs Phillips, the MP for Birmingham Yardley, later said she received in excess of 600 rape threats in a night.
After Mr Batten’s defence of Mr Benjamin yesterday, Mrs Phillips said her husband had asked: ‘Is this man satire?’
Writing online, she added: ‘Might get army of feminists out campaigning in seat where the bloke who said he wouldn’t even rape me is standing.’
Ex-Ukip leader Nigel Farage, who has set up the Brexit Party to fight the European elections, has said ‘middle England, decent people’ would no longer vote for Ukip because it has become obsessed with Islam and has a ‘fairly loutish fringe’ linked ‘with violence and thuggery’.
Mr Batten said this was a ‘smear’. Asked if he hates Islam, the religion he calls a ‘death cult’, Mr Batten replied: ‘I do not like the ideology, the literalist interpretation of Islam. I know lots of people in this country who do take a literal interpretation of Islam. I think that’s worrying.’
He also defended his proposal that mosque building should be banned in the UK. ‘We should not allow planning permission for mosques until they allow planning permission in Islamic countries for churches, Hindu temples and other forms of religion,’ he said.
The Muslim Council of Britain accused him of making ‘outrageous’ and ‘absurd’ claims about Islam and Muslims and said the interview highlighted Ukip’s ‘extremism’. ‘It demonstrates Mr Batten’s refusal to come to terms with the fact that Muslims are British too,’ a spokesman said.
Mr Batten took over the party last year and has appointed former EDL (English Defence League) leader Tommy Robinson as an adviser. Yesterday he insisted that Mr Robinson ‘is not far Right’.