UKIP MEP calls on Muslims to sign 'code of conduct'

Following the Times interview with UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, last week, in which he claimed the party was introducing stricter vetting procedures to keep ‘Walter Mittys’ at bay, news (The Guardian, The Independent, The Mirror, Daily Mail) emerges that the party’s immigration spokesperson and MEP for London, Gerard Batten, endorsed a five point ‘Proposed Charter of Muslim Understanding’ which calls for verses of the Qur’an to be ‘either deferred or suspended until such time as scholars find a solution for their interpretation’.

Batten stood as London mayoral candidate for UKIP in the 2008 elections and is a serving MEP.

The Charter, authored by a Muslim convert to Christianity, contains five ‘articles’ which the author encourages the Muslim Council of Britain, Al Azhar, the Organisation of Islamic Conference, the Muslim World League to endorse and sign “as an example to all European Muslims”.

Article 5 of the proposed Charter states:

“[A]ll Qur’anic Jihad verses encouraging physical violence, whether implicit or explicit, or any other quotations from any Islamic source, be that Sunnah or the sayings of the Prophet or that of the learned scholars or leaders of Jihad at any given time of place are to be regarded as inapplicable, invalid and non-Islamic.

“All Qur’anic verses that could be regarded as inciting discrimination on the grounds of religion, ethnicitiy or gender are just historical and will be regarded as non-effective for today’s world

“These verses will be either deferred or suspended until such time as scholars find a solution for their interpretation”.

In further evidence of Batten’s views on Muslims, The Guardian features a video in which Batten expounds his proposed policies as London mayoral candidate as “refus[ing] all planning applications for mosques in London until there is a place of non-Muslim worship in Mecca and Medina”.

He says it was “a big mistake to allow this explosion in mosques across the land” and that it is “estimated that half are run by extremists”.

The video also highlights Batten’s support for Geert Wilders saying he was “heroic for standing up for Western liberal democracy in the face of an ideology that wants to destroy it”.

Disclosures of Batten’s statements and endorsement of the Charter for Muslims comes in the same week as BBC Newsnight uncovered the ‘kidnapping gang member’ background of UKIP’s former Commonwealth spokesperson, Mujeeb Bhutto.

Farage, in his weekly column in The Independent this week wrote of his encounters with the BNP on the campaign trail in north of England. On the BNP leaflets which state “a vote for Ukip would result in a Muslim neighbour”, Farage writes “I am confident voters will know the difference between a patriotic party and a truly nasty party, which is what the BNP is”.

With disclosures today about Batten, it is unlikely many will see a difference.