Gerard Batten, the senior Ukip politician who called for Muslims to sign a code of conduct, has been accused of taking an “unbelievably sinister” position that is comparable to asking members of the faith to wear a yellow star.
Robert Halfon, a Conservative MP, called on the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, to sack Batten for his comments, after it emerged the Ukip MEP had helped write a “charter of Muslim understanding”. The document calls on Muslims to sign a declaration rejecting violence and accepting the need to modify the Qur’an.
Halfon, who is Jewish and has spoken out repeatedly against Islamic extremism, told the Guardian he considered Batten’s views “unbelievably sinister” and “frightening”.
He tweeted: “Big difference btwn lawful Muslims & extreme Islamists. UKIP MEP Batten’s statement a 1st step to wearing a Yellow Star.”
Sarah Ludford, a Liberal Democrat MEP for London, also criticised the comments, saying they “rip apart Ukip’s pretence” that it treats everybody equally.
“His offensive blanket stereotyping of Muslims speaks volumes about Ukip’s extremism and should warn voters that voting Ukip means associating with hatred and Islamophobia,” she said.
Two prominent Muslim MPs, Sadiq Khan and Rehman Chishti, have also condemned the “offensive” idea of a charter for Muslims. Chishti said Batten, who is Ukip’s immigration spokesman, should not be allowed to stand again as an MEP.
Ukip is yet to comment on Batten’s remarks, which come after an effort by Farage to rid the party of “Walter Mitty” types. The party has been involved in a string of controversies including the suspension of a councillor who blamed flooding on gay marriage and the ejection of the MEP Godfrey Bloom following comments about women and sending foreign aid to “bongo-bongo land”.
It also comes the day after Ukip distanced the party from Mujeeb ur Rehman Bhutto, its former Commonwealth spokesman, who was revealed by BBC Newsnight to have once been part of a kidnapping gang.
With Ukip hoping to top the polls in May’s European elections, Batten is top of the party’s MEP candidate list for London, having passed a round of psychometric testing to make sure his views were acceptable.
Batten told the Guardian he had written the charter in 2006 with a friend, who is an Islamic scholar, and could not see why “any reasonable, normal person” would object to signing it.
Asked on Tuesday whether he still believed Muslims should sign the charter, Batten said: “I don’t suppose the pope would disagree with it or the archbishop of Canterbury or anybody else. So why should they feel aggrieved that they might be asked to sign? They don’t have to. If they don’t believe in those five points, they don’t have to sign it.”
In a press release from the time, published on Ukip’s website, Batten called on Muslims to sign a five-point affirmation, in which they would promise to accept equality, reject violence in the name of religion, and accept a need to “re-examine and address the meaning and application of certain Islamic texts and doctrines”.
Asked why Muslims had been singled out, rather than followers of other faiths, Batten said: “Christians aren’t blowing people up at the moment, are they? Are there any bombs going off round the world claimed by Christian organisations? I don’t think so.”
In a separate video interview from 2010, Batten also proposed a ban on new mosques across Europe, suggested Muslim countries should not be “appeased” and warned of the threats of having “two incompatible systems living in the same place at the same time”.
In a statement to the Guardian, Batten later said: “I would expect the fundamentalists to agree with me that democracy is incompatible with fundamentalist Islam. Moderate Muslims have to decide which side of the argument they are on.
“Who is in favour of jihad? Apart from the jihadists of course? I was, and still am, happy to speak out against it. It is amusing that the Guardian equates being opposed to extremism and jihadism as ‘overlapping with the far right’. So are leftwing liberals in favour of jihad? If not, do they overlap too?”