Ukip leader Gerard Batten claims Carl Benjamin’s rape tweet was “satire”

"The context that he said it was satire against the people he was saying it about"

Gerard Batten, the Ukip leader, has described a candidate's rape tweet to MP Jess Phillips as "satire" during an appearance on BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday morning. Carl Benjamin, who was announced as an MEP candidate for Ukip earlier in the week, had previously written that 'I wouldn’t even rape you' to the Labour politician on Twitter. Asked about it by Marr, Batten said: "I think this was satire." Pressed by Marr, who asked how a comment about rape could be seen as satire, he added: "I don’t know the exact context of that and I certainly don't condone 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 that he said it was satire against the people he was saying it about. He wasn’t actually making a literal statement." https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1117383276665028608 Phillips later responded to Batten's appearance on Marr's show via Twitter, despite not seeing it. In the last of three tweets posted, she made clear she had no problem with the issue being discussed by Marr, describing it as the 'right thing to do'. https://twitter.com/jessphillips/status/1117364153566531585 https://twitter.com/jessphillips/status/1117364996684636161 https://twitter.com/jessphillips/status/1117365536000827398