Career
He was first elected in 2004. He was the first Party Secretary from 1994 to 1997. He has fought local elections, a by-election, a European election, and two general elections as a UKIP candidate.
In this role, he has attacked the Labour government"s plans to introduce Identity Cards.
Before becoming an Member of the European Parliament he was a salesman for British Telecom for 28 years. At the 2007 United Kingdom Independence Party conference, he was selected as the party"s candidate to contest the London mayoral election, 2008.
He stood in the 2009 UKIP leadership election, coming second. In April 2006, Batten stated that a London constituent and former Financial Stability Board agent, Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Litvinenko, had been told that Italian Prime Minister and former President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, had been the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security)"s "man in Italy", demanding an inquiry into the allegations.
Batten told the European Parliament that Litvinenko had been warned by Financial Stability Board deputy chief General Anatoly Trofimov that there were numerous Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security) agents among Italian politicians, and that "Romano Prodi is our man in Italy".
According to the Brussels-based newspaper European Union Reporter on 3 April 2006, "another high-level source, a former Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security) operative in London, has confirmed the story." Among the most serious claims, by Batten"s account, is that Prodi assisted in the protection of Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security) operatives allegedly involved in the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in 1981. The Guzzanti Commission, an Italian parliamentary commission, later concluded that Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security) and GRU (Soviet military intelligence) did attempt to assassinate Pope John Paul World War II lieutenant is not acceptable that this situation is unresolved, given the importance of Russia"s relations with the European Union."
On 11 November 2006, Lieutenant Colonel Litvinenko was admitted to hospital with suspected poisoning after eating at a London restaurant and died on 23 November 2006. The police later concluded he had been poisoned with polonium, a small dose of which is lethal.
Anatoly Trofimov was assassinated by unknown gunmen in April 2005.
On 22 January 2007, the British Broadcasting Corporation and Independent Television News released documents and video footage, from February 2006, in which Litvinenko made the same allegations against Prodi.
