Gerard Batten meets EDL's Alan Lake

From Barthsnotes:

"A March 2011 report in Searchlight claimed that Alan Lake, who was at that time involved with the EDL (he’s since fallen out with the group) “boasts of his links with Batten”, although details are scarce and so far as I can see unproven. Searchlight also speculates that Lake may have come across Solomon previously – Lake formerly attended Kensington Temple, a large neo-Pentecostal church in London where Solomon has given at least one sermon."

Update October 2012:
Batten’s statement re. his meetings with Lake was published on twitter by an ex-UKIP employee, Jasna Badzak:

Final tweet tonight-#UKIP MEP Spokesman admits meeting #EDL deputy Lake,connected to Breivik,questioned by Norwaypolice twitter.com/JasnaBadzak/st…
— Jasna Badzak (@JasnaBadzak) October 24, 2012

7th March 2011: Statement from Gerard Batten UKIP MEP about his meeting with Alan Lake and subsequent phone calls:

"In the Autumn of 2010 I was asked to meet with a Mr Alan Lake, who I was informed had some association with the English Defence League. I was informed he wished to explain to me the position of the English Defence League.

Being aware of the phenomenon of the EDL, I wished to establish my own independent assessment of them. I decided therefore, on my own initiative, to meet with Mr Lake. We met in full public view in a cafe in Liverpool St Station for about an hour or more.

Mr Lake gave me his assurances that the EDL were a non-racist, non-violent organisation and that is only concerned with combating the ideology of extremist and fundamentalist Islamism and had no prejudice against Muslims as such.

I decided that no further meetings were either necessary or appropriate.

Since then Mr Lake has made two unsolicited phone calls to me; and a third call today to say that his reported comments in the Searchlight article had been misrepresented from an interview he gave to the Daily Star."

EDL Leader Tommy Robinson sits down with Mohammad Ayoub, a founder of Muslim youth magazine 'The Revival'

The remainder of the BBC Asian Network special report "Who's Afraid of the EDL" is below:

NOTE: This documentary 'Who's Afraid of the EDL?' does contain some strong views and language which some might find offensive.
The English Defence League has protested all over the UK against 'radical Islam' and now the group want to go global. For this Asian Network Reports Special, Reporter Catrin Nye spent three months following and getting to know the people behind the EDL. They say they are a 'single issue group' but is it really just 'radical Islam' they are fighting against? And what makes a British Asian Sikh join an organisation that other British Asians say is racist? Guramit - or Amit as he prefers - is the groups spokesperson and events organiser. He has become one of their most high profile members after the leader Tommy Robinson. Already aware that plans were underway to take the message of the EDL further than the streets of Britain's towns, Catrin is allowed access to the groups first meeting with an American Rabbi. She then travels to Amsterdam where EDL members go to show support for the European Defence League and the Dutch followers of Geert Wilders, the Netherlands very own anti-Islam MP. Finally, Catrin manages to persuade the leader of the EDL, Tommy Robinson to meet and debate for the first time with Mohammad Ayoub, founder of youth magazine 'The Revival'. It's in this face to face meeting that Tommy is challenged and finally lays his cards on the table.