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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Good morning and welcome to The Independent's updates on the latest news on Brexit and UK politics.
A second opinion poll in as many days as indicated that Nigel Farage's Brexit Party is heading for victory in European elections.
The YouGov poll for The Times found the former Ukip leader's new group had surged ahead of Labour and the Tories since it was launched last week.
Brexit Party are leading on 23%, with Labour on 22% and the Conservatives heading for a crushing defeat on 17%. Last week the same poll put Farage's party on 15%, with Labour on 24% and the Tories on 16%.
Much of the support for Farage's party seems to have been drawn from Ukip, who languish in seventh place on 6%
The latest poll appears to confirm the findings of another YouGov survey, released yesterday, which put the Brexit Party on the lead in 27%.
With Nigel Farage seemingly on track for victory in 23 May's European elections, worried Labour backbenchers are piling renewed pressure on Jeremy Corbyn to come in support of a second referendum.
MPs warned Labour risked "leeching support to other parties" unless it sent a pro-Europe message "loud and clear".
Our deputy political editor Rob Merrick has the full story:
Jeremy Corbyn told to commit to Brexit vote or let Farage snatch shock European elections victory
Fearful backbenchers urge Labour leader to shift his stance in manifesto after poll shows former Ukip leader on course to triumph with new Brexit PartyNigel Farage says he is being "slightly cautious" about his new party's favourable polling, although he believes "the public are warming to us".
In interview with the Daily Express, he said: "There’s great grassroots support, large numbers of people joining, grassroots donations and all of it feels very exciting.
“I think we will be announcing a few more candidates next week.
“People want a fresh, positive vision. They are tired of career politicians endlessly threatening them, sounding miserable and not believing in the country.”
That attack on "career politicians", of course, comes from some who has been an MEP since 1999 and has stood for election to UK parliament seven times.
One vote Nigel Farage can count in next month's EU election is that of George Galloway.
The former Respect Party leader and Bradford West MP tweeted that he would supporting the Brexit Party "for one-time only" as he wants to secure the UK's departure from the EU.
Galloway and Farage have teamed before up to campaign for Brexit ahead of the 2016 referendum.
At the time, Galloway insisted they were "not pals" but "allies in one cause. Like Churchill and Stalin".
Britain's former ambassador to Brussels has warned Tory leadership contenders who promise to re-open the Withdrawal Agreement if they take over from Theresa May will "wreck any prospect" of getting a future trade deal.
Sir Ivan Rogers, who stood down from his role in January 2017, told BBC Two's Newsnight last night: "If various candidates make pledges as to the future direction of the Brexit talks, what they would do in phase two, that will essentially wreck any prospect of phase two succeeding.
"So if people were to give commitments, saying 'when I'm in power, if you give me this job, I will reopen the Withdrawal Agreement', and indicate we can't possibly accept the backstop and take a much more robust and bellicose position with Brussels - well, that leads fairly inexorably to a breakdown of the talks."
He said he was a "little bit surprised" the UK was not further down the exit process and suggested the public still do not know what the public know about Brexit.
The government must "bring the country behind one version of Brexit in the next two to three years - otherwise we're going to re-fight this civil war for the next generation," he added.
The UK should use the next few months to "cool down and rethink" its decision to leave the EU, according a candidate in the running to be the European Commission's next president.
Frans Timmermans, the socialist contender to succeed Jean-Claude Juncker, said delaying Brexit until October had given the country to opportunity to "look at the issue again".
The Dutchman, who is currently the commission's vice-president, said: "I absolutely hope that the UK might stay in the EU.
"I hope this period of extension will be used for Britain to calm down and rethink things a bit, perhaps for politicians to be more responsible with the promises they make, and then look at the issue again later this year.
"Who knows what might change in the meantime?"
Timmermans was expressing a sentiment shared by some in the EU, notably the chairman of EU leaders, Donald Tusk, that Britain could still change its mind and stay in the EU.
The comments came during a television debate on France 24 with his main rival, Manfred Weber of the centre-right European People's Party (EPP), who is favourite to succeed Juncker in May.
The EU political group with most seats in the European Parliament expects its candidate for commission president to land the job, although the decision formally lies with EU leaders.
Latest polls - which assume UK participation in the elections - show the EPP winning 178 seats and the socialists getting 144 seats.
Here's a visual breakdown of YouGov's latest EU election poll, showing Nigel Farage's Brexit Party leading the way:
It is not just EU migrants in the UK who are facing Brexit upheaval, as demonstrated by this opinion piece by Emma Lawrence - a British expat told she must leave France within a month:
Thanks to Brexit, I've got 30 days to leave my home in France
When we applied for the right to remain in France after Britain leaves the EU, we discovered that we don't meet a basic income criteria that we had never before been told existedShe was greeted by a group of local anti-Brexit protesters, who held a banner and a fake customs sign to illustrate queues at the border.
The Democrat politician said: "We believe that Brexit should be just an aberration in this discussion as we continue to build and strengthen our peace that was generated by the Good Friday accord."
She said the US had a vested interest in peace in Northern Ireland which was sealed by the 1998 agreement.
"We have said that we are guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement because we believe it is fair to both sides, that is why they agreed to it," she added.
Yesterday Pelosi, who is visiting the the British isles as part of a delegation of US members of congress, told Irish parliament in Dublin there would be "no chance of a UK-US trade agreement" if Brexit lead to a hard border in Ireland.
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".
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:
Right-wing populist and Eurosceptic parties would be biggest single group in European parliament
The combined seats of the three existing groups would dominate the parliamentConsumers 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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