Gerard Batten

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Gerard Batten (2019)

Gerard Batten (born March 27, 1954 in Harold Hil , Essex , now the London Borough of Havering ) is a British politician and has been a MEP for the UK Independence Party for London since 2004 . He has been the chairman of his party since April 2018. Within the European Parliament he belonged to the Euro-critical group Independence and Democracy , EFD and EFDD .

Batten, who grew up in the East End of London , worked as a manual binder from 1972 to 1976 before working as a manager at British Telecom (later BT Group ) from 1976 to 2004 . Politically, Batten is active for the UK Independence Party, of which he is a founding member. Since the founding of the party in 1993, with one interruption from 1997 to 2002, Batten has been a member of the party executive and was party secretary from 1994 to 1997. In 2004 Batten was elected to the European Parliament for the first time. In November 2009 he ran for the chairmanship of his party, but was defeated by Lord Pearson . After Henry Bolton was deposed as party chairman in February 2018, he initially took over his office on a provisional basis until he was officially elected to the party leadership on April 14, 2018. There was no opponent.

On November 23, 2018, Batten came under public criticism after appointing controversial Tommy Robinson as one of his advisors. Several elected officials and office holders left the party, including nine MEPs. After a - failed - motion of no confidence by former UKIP chairman Nigel Farage and his resignation from UKIP, Batten left the EFDD parliamentary group, of which Farage is chairman.

Current posts as MEP

Web links

Commons : Gerard Batten  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lord Pearson elected leader of the UK Independence Party. BBC , November 27, 2009, accessed April 15, 2018.
  2. ↑ Batten is the new leader of the UKIP party. ORF , April 15, 2018, accessed on the same day
  3. ^ Nigel Farage: Ditch UKIP leader for hiring Tommy Robinson. BBC News, November 23, 2018, accessed November 23, 2018 .
  4. ↑ https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/uk-independence-party/nigel-farage/news/100404/ukip-boss-gerard-batten
  5. ^ Website of the European Parliament
personal data
SURNAME Batten, Gerard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British politician, MEP
DATE OF BIRTH March 27, 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH Harold Hil , Essex , now the London Borough of Havering