Brexit news: Ukip candidate refuses to apologise to Labour MP over rape tweet as pro-Leave party launches EU election campaign
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A Ukip election candidate has refused to apologise for sending a rape tweet to Labour’s Jess Phillips, as the anti-EU party kicked off its European election campaign at a chaotic event.
Carl Benjamin claimed he was justified in being ”a giant dick” to the MP.
He complained she had been a “bitch” before he sent her a message saying: “I wouldn’t even rape you.”
Ukip leader Gerard Batten earlier stormed out of an interview after being challenged over his defence of the tweet.
His party faces being eclipsed by its former leader in next month’s EU vote, with polls showing Nigel Farage‘s Brexit Party is on course for victory.
Official figures show consumers have continued to ignore concerns about Brexit to send retail sales surging in March
Sales were up 1.1 per cent on February, well above expectations of a fall of 0.3 per cent, driven by food and non-store retailing, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
However all retailers except department stores and household goods stores saw an increase in sales in the three months to March 2019 compared with the previous quarter.
Department stores were the only store type to suffer a decrease in sales – of 0.3 per cent - when compared with last March.
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Ukip's leader has stormed out of an interview after being questioned about his defence of an EU election candidate sending a rape tweet to MP Jess Phillips.
Gerard Batten reacted angrily to questions from Sky News about Carl Benjamin, who told the Labour politician "I wouldn't even rape you" after she spoke about receiving threats.
Batten defended the post as "satire" on The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday.
Asked by Sky News what he meant by that, the Ukip leader said: "Go and ask Carl Benjamin. This is a three-year-old tweet that he did in the context of some Twitter trolling people were doing. He made an ill-considered remark."
Challenged further by political correspondent Kate McCann, he responded "how many times are you going to ask me the same question?" and walked out.
Watch the footage:
Here's some more ominous polling for the Tories: a ComRes survey suggests their vote share in the event of a general election would be as low as 29%.
That would the Conservatives' worst performance in decades.
The survey, commissioned by pro-Leave pressure group Brexit Express, put Labour in the lead on 33% and Nigel Farage's Brexit Party in third place.
Gerard Batten, who today launched Ukip's European election campaign, has insisted his party is the "true" voice of Leave voters as he seeks to stop suppporters jumping ship for Nigel Farage's Brexit Party.
Batten insisted Ukip's past success and the 2016 referendum result were "not the province of one man".
"Ukip is the authentic party of Brexit, the true party of Leave," he told the launch event.
Farage quit Ukip last year as it moved further right under Batten's leadership. He said the party had been "destroyed" by its "lurch towards extremism".
Batten was joined at the campaign launch by candidates including Mark Meechan, who achieved notoriety for training his girlfriend's pug to perform Nazi salutes, and Carl Benjamin, an anti-feminist YouTuber with the online alias "Sargon of Akkad".
Gerard Batten, right, with Ukip chair Kirstan Herriott and European election candidates Carl Benjamin and Mark Meechan (picture: AFP/Getty)
Ukip's EU election campaign launch has turned combative, with candidate Carl Benjamin calling journalists "dirty smear merchants" who asked him about his rape tweet to Jess Phillips "dirty smear merchants".
Benjamin - a YouTuber known as Sargon of Akkad - said he was standing for the party to campaign for free speech.
Defending a tweet to the Labour MP saying "I wouldn't even rape you", he said: "I'm not going to apologise for my crimes against political correctness, I hate political correctness."
He told reporters: "I'm not answering your questions, I'm not apologising for anything, you dirty, dirty smear merchants."
He went on to claim Phillips was being a "giant bitch" before he sent that tweet and that meant "I'm going to be a giant dick back to her".
Labour MP Jess Phillips has responded to Ukip candidate Carl Benjamin calling her a "giant bitch", and she seems unfazed:
Irish citizens in Northern Ireland will continue to be European "in all circumstances", Irish premier Leo Varadkar has vowed.
In a move to reassure northern nationalists, the Taoiseach said people in Northern Ireland will continue to benefit from "important rights" and will not be discriminated against on the grounds of nationality.
Thousands of nationalists living north of the border have called on Mr Varadkar to ensure their rights are protected as the political fallout over Brexit continues.
In January more than 1,500 Irish citizens attended an event in Belfast which highlighted the potential impact of Brexit on their rights and livelihoods.
In his annual address to Seanad Eireann - the upper house in Dublin - Mr Varadkar said: "The Withdrawal Agreement contains a commitment from the UK that Brexit will not result in any diminution of the rights, safeguards and equality of opportunity as set out in the Good Friday Agreement.
"I have discussed with Prime Minister May the responsibilities of the UK government under the Good Friday Agreement, with or without a deal.
"No matter what happens, there are a number of areas on which we can provide reassurance for Irish citizens living in Northern Ireland.
"Irish citizens in Northern Ireland will continue to be European citizens in all circumstances.
"They will continue to enjoy the right to travel and work and study freely throughout the EU, benefiting from the important rights not to be discriminated against on the grounds of nationality while doing so."
The EU’s Eurosceptic, populist and far-right parties are set to dominate European parliament after next month’s election, reports The Independent's Europe correspondent Jon Stone:
Consumers have continued to ignore concerns about Brexit to send retail sales surging in March, official figures show.
Sales were up 1.1% on February, well above expectations of a fall of 0.3%, driven by food and non-store retailing, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
However all retailers except department stores and household goods stores saw an increase in sales in the three months to March 2019 compared with the previous quarter.
Department stores were the only store type to suffer a decrease in sales - of 0.3% - when compared with last March.
Ed Monk, associate director for personal investing at Fidelity International, said: "The week's economic releases have ended with good news. Even accounting for the Beast from the East, which kept shoppers at home a year ago, today's retail sales data show households willing to spend more.
"That reflects a slow recovery from a decade-long wage squeeze and, perhaps, a willingness to look through the apparently never-ending uncertainty that is Brexit."
Hopes of a pro-EU surge at the ballot box have been hit by infighting that will split the Remain vote. In a piece available to Independent Minds subscribers, our deputy political editor Rob Merrick takes a look at why anti-Brexit parties failed to agree work together - and at what cost:
Tory Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg has said Nigel Farage's new Brexit Party has "moderated" British politics and will suck support away from the increasingly "extremist" Ukip.
He told BBC Radio 4's World At One: "I think the one really good thing about it is that it has taken votes away from Ukip now Ukip is allied to Tommy Robinson.
"I think Tommy Robinson reflects a type of politics that, I think, is unattractive and not usual in Britain, and that therefore in that way the new Brexit Party has moderated British politics from an extremist route that we were in danger of going down.
"Am I sorry they're taking votes from the Conservatives? Yes, of course I am - I would encourage all people at all times to vote Conservative in all elections."
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