On 26 April 2006, Batten repeated his call for a parliamentary inquiry, stating that: "Former, senior members of the KGB are willing to testify in such an investigation, under the right conditions... It is not acceptable that this situation is unresolved, given the importance of Russia's relations with the European Union." Lt.-Col. Litvinenko was admitted to hospital with suspected poisoning on 11 November 2006 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, BBC News and ITV News released documents and video footage from February 2006 in which Litvinenko made the same allegations against Prodi. European Union, Ireland and Brexit In a 2013 interview with openDemocracy, Batten argued that the European Union was inspired by the proposals the Nazis developed in 1942 for Europe after they had won the Second World War, stating they were very similar to the 1957 Treaty of Rome. In 2017, in response to the Irish Government's intervention in the Brexit negotiations, Batten expressed the view on Twitter that Ireland, "a tiny country that relies on UK for its existence", is "the weakest kid in the playground sucking up to the EU bullies". He advocated the revocation of the Common Travel Area between Ireland and the UK. Ireland's Foreign Minister, Simon Coveney, rejected Batten's claims: "Ireland is not threatening anybody, least of all a friend, but we remain resolute in our insistence on a sensible way through Brexit that protects Ireland." A UKIP spokesman said Batten's comments do not reflect party policy. Views of multiculturalism and Islam In 2007 Batten participated in the second international counter-jihad conference in Brussels. Batten invited the Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV) leader and MEP Geert Wilders to the European Parliament in December 2008, in an unsuccessful attempt to screen Wilders' film Fitna for MEPs. According to Batten in Freedom Today, Wilders "is a brave man trying to defend western civilisation in the face of its own loss of the most basic instinct of self-preservation". When Wilders was refused entry to the UK at Heathrow Airport in 2009, following an invitation from the UKIP peer Lord Pearson for Wilders to screen his film to members of the House of Lords, Batten said: "We can't do anything about