Fellow London MEP Gerard Batten is apparently campaigning to succeed Nigel Farage as leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). The site set up to support him is interesting to say the least.Yesterday there was a post arguing that Gerard Batten’s attempts to cover up fraudulent spending of European Union monies did not matter, and there was no need for an investigation. An unusual position for a party which claims to be against the misuse of EU monies.However, like Ashley Mote and now Tom Wise, Gerard does not consider that laws apply to him. Gerard is a man who does not believe it is in the British character to play by the rules, and pay your taxes. He is refusing to pay his television licence.
Let’s return to his campaign website which reads a bit like the diary of Adrain Mole aged 55 and 3/4. Schoolboy politics might provide a slogan like “Forget the rest and vote for the best.” In the unlikely event of a Batten victory how will Gerard create a leadership team of all the talents other UKIP MEPs?
Gerard’s leadership blog certainly likes a bit of Viz style humour, commenting on the recent Exeter UKIP leadership hustings, the verdict is juvenile: “Pants to the rest, Gerard is the best!“
Let’s hope this blog is written by an over enthusiastic supporter of Gerard’s.
Looking at his official website there is no mention of his campaign for Leader. Google “Gerard Batten” and Leader in news, and you find that the BNP have been writing to Gerard as the kind of person they think would like to donate to them. Why would this be?
Look at Gerard’s website, it is a place where a BNP supporter would feel at home. Let’s start with his article “The Myth of Multiculturalism” which starts
“THE MYTH of multiculturalism depends on the belief that completely different cultures, and indeed contradictory world views, can peacefully co-exist within the same geographic and political space.”
Gerard represents London, he doesn’t seem to have noticed there are people with lots of differents beliefs in London. We all manage to rub along together. Londoners are pretty tolerant people, we even manage to put up with UKIP MEPs.
How about Gerard’s views on immigration? He’s written a 4 page pamphlet on the subject with the title “Enough is Enough“?
Then there’s his article in Freedom Today The Islamist threat to freedom where he talks about his regard for far right Dutch politician Geert Wilders (who Gerard is pictured with above).
You can begin to see why the BNP might consider Gerard Batten would want to support them. Let’s turn back to the intellectual masterpiece that is the “myth of multicultalism” article. This says in language strikingly like something Nick Griffin might say: “The British political and intellectual elite have not only thought that multiculturalism is highly desirable but they have spent the last fifty years actively bringing it about.”
Who could Gerard mean? How about current UKIP leader Nigel Farage? He’s married to a German. Yorkshire UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom? He’s married to a Pole. Even the Queen married a Greek. That’s right Gerard lots of British people are marrying foreign people, and I think love is wonderful, but you want to stop it?
Often when I write about UKIP members misbehaviour I receive notes from UKIP members complaining that they are decent people, and are unlucky to have so many people of bad character in UKIP. The other possibility is UKIP attracts people of bad character, discuss.
Looking at Gerard Batten’s record shouldn’t UKIP be investigating him rather than considering having him as a party leader?
Now that Tom Wise has admitted his guilt to expenses fraud, shouldn’t questions be asked as to why Gerard Batten defended him and tried to excuse Tom Wise’s fraudulent misdemeanours?
Surely any mainstream political party expects their representatives/leaders to pay taxes like the television licence fee?
Mary, I would be grateful if you would consider my observations about UKIP MEP’s having foreign wives. You name two who have foreign wives but you could have mentioned that UKIP MEP’s also have foreign husbands. As you know two new women UKIP MEPs appeared in the last parliament. One of them being Marta Andreason, former EU Chief Accountant. I think I think that I am right in saying that she has a foreign husband but however many foreign spouses these MEPs are found to have is in my view irrelevant. There is no mismatch between marital choices and political stances because UKIP is not anti-European it is pro-European.
Please do not mix up a disdain for the political intitutions of the EU with antipathy for its peoples. I am a huge fan of Egypt but this does not mean that I respect its corrupt President Hosni Mubarak.
You requested that readers of your blog discuss people of bad character in UKIP. The obvious point first – you are not perhaps, as a member of the Labour Party very well placed to ‘cast the first stone’. There are rotten apples in UKIP as in every other political party including yours. You concentrated your fire on two UKIP miscreants in the main, one of these was sacked from the Party within just 48 hours. Rather quicker than the PM, David Cameron or Whatshisname have moved. I do realise, of course, that you are not mindlessly partisan in your outlook; you have condemned referendums as being undemocratic even though your Party offered one and like UKIP you opposed the invasion of Iraq. You do think out of the Labour Box but you are a member and you campaign under the party banner. The same party that told us it would be ‘whiter than white’ and that it would have an ethical foreign policy. The party that should have stuck solely with its other slogan, ‘Things Can Only Get Better’, a statement which is actually more true now than it was when it was first used.