Gerard Batten - Pants On Fire

After the antics of the Gilets Jamons outside the Palace of Westminster recently, it was inevitable that our free and fearless press would start their own investigations of those involved - and who they hunt with. The result is that the Daily Mail has put meathead emeritus James Goddard through the smearing mangle, in the process revealing his connections to current UKIP leader Adolf von Batten.

I em not a racialist but, und zis is a big but ...

“The far-Right mob leader repeatedly hounding an anti-Brexit MP outside Parliament has links to Ukip … James Goddard was in a gang of agitators that surrounded Tory MP Anna Soubry on Monday, calling her a ‘Nazi’ and a ‘traitor’. The Daily Mail can reveal that he was photographed with Ukip leader Gerard Batten at a far-Right demo last year” tells the report under the less than subtle headline “UKIP AND THE HATEMONGER”.

Batten has not taken at all kindly to this revelation, telling his followers “Fake & malicious ‘news’. Dozens of people ask for selfies with me at rallies & meetings. I don’t know who they are. I didn’t know who he was. I am not going to be rude & refuse strangers. Fake news media getting desperate”. That’s going to be difficult to stand up.

As the Mail points out, Batten attended a rally last year in support of Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, while the latter was in jail following his being found in contempt of court for a second time. James Goddard was one of the speakers at that rally. As the Mail put it, “Goddard, 29, played a leading role at the rally last June and made a speech in which he said the UK was being governed by ‘hostile paedophiles’. It is unclear whether Mr Batten heard the speech, which was broadcast over loudspeakers”.

If Gerard Batten is claiming that he didn’t find out who was speaking at that rally, he is at best unwise and at worst downright irresponsible. Kippers have been as swift as any on the right to criticise those in the Labour Party for who they “share a platform with”. Worse for the UKIP leader is that the photo in the Mail is not his only Goddard encounter.

"I don't know who he was" - Take 1

Both of them can also be seen with Tracy Blackwell, whose loss of her son in a drink-drive accident - the son was one of three young men mown down by a drunk driver and killed - has been used by Stephen Lennon as a cause célèbre. Lennon has apparently convinced Ms Blackwell that the driver, who was of Indian heritage, was a Muslim and that her son was killed as part of some unspecified jihadi terror attack.

"I don't know who he was" - Take 2

The driver, who was sent down for a long stretch, was not a Muslim. There is Batten with Ms Blackwell and James Goddard. And yet he maintains the pretence that he does not know who Goddard is. But he has good reason for trying to dissociate himself from Goddard, who has has his Facebook account suspended, and has also been chucked off PayPal, thus potentially cutting off his funding.

Right now, my Occam’s Razor is pointing at Adolf von Batten having his trousers well alight. It is inconceivable that he doesn’t know who Goddard is. It is also possible that there are more photos out there showing the two of them together.

UKIP leaders do seem to have a problem with lying. I’ll just leave that one there.

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